I think it's here.
Re: is it just me or does SB Live! drivers suck?

Not sure why it isn't on VogonsDrivers. Maybe it's under a different name. (I find it a little too disorganized sometimes.)

QBiN wrote:

For Win9x (excluding WinME) it appears the VxD drivers where the most reliable.

It depends on what you mean by "reliable". The VxD drivers may be more likely to cause BSDs one way or another.

I tried to put it up on VogonsDrivers years ago but it never showed up in the listing. I suppose I should try that again....

The split zip archive is still on my Mediafire account though yes. It's split because of Mediafire's per-file size limit.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/n13owcw4c3c … O_Win9x.zip.001
http://www.mediafire.com/download/w42aso6k597 … O_Win9x.zip.002

I have a Live!ware 3.0 With SBLW-CD-S2D-1-US
It's from the Australian PC User July 2000 CD, not sure if its got the Vxd dirvers though as the installer stops when it cant find a card installed.
I remember it had more then the download from the creative site which I had been using the previous 3 years before getting the CD but cant remember the differences now.
Been meaning to upload it to Vogon drivers for a while, but haven't asked for a logon, I'll do that now. Size is 323MB zipped if you have somewhere to dump it?

The older version has files dated in '98. If the disc has files newer than that, it's the WDM version intended for WinME. You may want to check your CD size against the Live! install CD on the VogonsDriver site to see if it's the same. If not, more drivers to choose from is better than not enough drivers to choose from.

I'm trying swaaye's now (after a 2nd wipe and re-install)... we'll see.

Hmm... The older Live!Ware CD seems to have mostly done the trick. However, it also appears to have introduced two unwelcome gremlins.

First, soft shutdowns and reboots no longer work (Asus P2B-F) post-install of the SB Live! drivers. In either case, the shutdown or reboot screen pops up, but never actually gets past it. I have to either hold the power down or hit the reset depending on what I'm trying to do.

Secondly, the drivers seems to shut off my PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports (thank goodness USB keyboard / mouse still work). It's weird, the keyboard will work in the BIOS and anytime prior to boot up (even in MS-DOS mode)... but going to a Normal boot kills the PS/2 ports only since the driver was installed.

I have never used any ASUS P2B but I have not seen problems like that with Liveware3 VXD. There is a driver update available for Liveware 3 that you could try but I don't think it addresses anything strange like that.

Release date : 2 May 00
File Name : sblw9xup.exe
This is latest driver update for Sound Blaster Live! Series of audio cards for users running on Windows 95 and 98 only. This release includes:

• Updated version of Surround Mixer 1.0 and AudioHQ.
• 1024-voice software MIDI synth for Sound Blaster Live! (Option to select up to 1024 software voices)
• Improved support for Occlusion and Obstruction effects in EAX2.0

http://support.creative.com/downloads/downloa … nDownloadId=247

Could you be seeing ACPI problems perhaps? I would also try the Live in each PCI slot because in my experience PCI is very picky about what devices are on the same INT. On my Abit board the best PCI slot for sound cards is usually the one that shares with USB believe it or not.

swaaye wrote:

Could you be seeing ACPI problems perhaps? I would also try the Live in each PCI slot because in my experience PCI is very picky about what devices are on the same INT. On my Abit board the best PCI slot for sound cards is usually the one that shares with USB believe it or not.

SUCCESS! I did install the update prior to posting. That didn't change anything. However, thanks for jogging my memory, Swaaye, about PCI interrupt usage. I couldn't discern any obvious IRQ/DMA/etc. conflicts based on the device manager output or the BIOS bootup PCI device screen. However with nearly every PCI slot taken, I figured there might be little breathing room left.

I went to the BIOS, disabled the LPT port and one of the COM ports to free up some IRQ's. I then hard-mapped the PCI slot the SB Live! was using to IRQ 7 (vacated by disabling the LPT port... so I knew it was free). Rebooted, and now everything is happy.... PS/2 keyboard & mouse work again, and ACPI soft functions returned to normal.

Ahh... Plug n Play... Pffft.

Thanks, all, for the help, drivers, and kick in the pants. Just goes to show how awesome our community is at jogging each other's memory with this old gear.

Does LiveWare 3.0 support 2nd generation of SB Live! (ct4760 and ct4830)? As far as I can see, driver inf file contains necessary records for these cards, but trying to install driver using installation program results in "card not found" message.

I doubt it - I know LiveWare 3.0 won't work with my ct4870. Still have (and use) the original driver CD because of that.

kokornov wrote:

Does LiveWare 3.0 support 2nd generation of SB Live! (ct4760 and ct4830)? As far as I can see, driver inf file contains necessary records for these cards, but trying to install driver using installation program results in "card not found" message.

My SB Live! is a CT4760 and this CD is the ONLY set of drivers that I've found to work reliably under Win98SE (with the help of friends here on Vogons).

I put the Liveware 3 CD up on VogonsDrivers. Added Liveware 2.0 as well and went through and organized the other CDs / drivers on there by driver version.

swaaye wrote:

I put the Liveware 3 CD up on VogonsDrivers. Added Liveware 2.0 as well and went through and organized the other CDs / drivers on there by driver version.

That's better, but what exactly is the difference between "Sound Blaster Live! Install (VXD 4.06.654) Applications CD" and "Sound Blaster Live! Install (VXD 4.06.654) CD" ? And "Sound Blaster Live! Applications CD (Sept 2000)" ? Did some models of Sound Blaster come with more that one CD, or something?

Jorpho wrote:

swaaye wrote:

I put the Liveware 3 CD up on VogonsDrivers. Added Liveware 2.0 as well and went through and organized the other CDs / drivers on there by driver version.

That's better, but what exactly is the difference between "Sound Blaster Live! Install (VXD 4.06.654) Applications CD" and "Sound Blaster Live! Install (VXD 4.06.654) CD" ? And "Sound Blaster Live! Applications CD (Sept 2000)" ? Did some models of Sound Blaster come with more that one CD, or something?

My guess is yes some cards came with 2 CDs. I only uploaded the Liveware 3 CD so I'm not entirely sure about the others. The pair that I labeled with the same version appeared to be related (by date). The other app CD looked alone.

the application cd is usually the same MindMaker bundles, some novelty media players and some panorama thing and other Inspire-like things that failed to catch on.

I have a Live 5.1 with a Sep 2000 Install/Apps dual CD set. All the games are on their own separate OEM CDs. 😀

leileilol wrote:

I have a Live 5.1 with a Sep 2000 Install/Apps dual CD set.

That's what I've gathered as well. The Live 5.1 shipped with the new Install/App CD set with WDM drivers. Although those drivers state on their splash screen that they're for the "Live! Series", it's been my recent experience that only the earlier Liveware sets w/ VxD drivers play nice with the CT4760 and Win98SE.