My theory is that the headphone jack on the soundcard is dirty or broken. You can try cleaning with a little isopropyl alcohol to see if it helps at all.

Thanks so much for the reply, and good thought, but I figured it out! The card was shipped missing a jumper (requires two, one for left and one for right speaker out [or can be configured for line out]). Used a jumper from the card I'm not using and working like a champ!

As DOS boots, the card is quite noisy, but I figured out if I run the SETUPSA utility (the full utility - silent mode doesn't help), when I exit, it fixes this. Odd. Wish I could figure out a command line version to do the same thing, but it's only two keys to exit it, so booting with it loading is my workaround for now.

Also my daughterboard isn't going to fit, but the sound is an improvement enough that I'm just not going to worry about a MIDI card at this time.

Thanks all; if anyone has a suggestion about getting the thing to shush as far as noise without loading that utility fully, lemme know. =)

Mine is really noisy too, and exiting the application didn't fix it. I had to go into the "3D" menu in SETUPSA and drop the volume and the bass and treble levels all to 0 to get rid of the noise.

I have a similar card with line out/speaker out jumpers. It should be noted that, as with most/all YMF71x based cards, the amplified (speaker out) configuration is not recommended as it tends to be way too loud and noisy/distorted. Configuring it as line-level audio without the extra amplification is much preferred and should be plenty loud for headphones or externally amplified speakers.

Yeah realised that myself since..set it to line out and it'll sound great (and no noise!)

Yeah realised that myself since..set it to line out and it'll sound great (and no noise!)