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Another Aztech card and it's driving me crazy. Is it broken and need to be fixed or did I screw something up?

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First post, by nathanieltolbert

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Okay. So I have been fighting with this card for about 3 weeks now and it's driving me crazy. So I have the Reveal SC400 Rev.3 which from looking here is a rebadged Aztech Sound Galaxy Nova 16 Extra card. Using the drivers on here for Aztech cards I got the card to load and work, but it wouldn't load in windows, so I reinstalled windows and then reinstalled the driver package. Upon reboot, I couldn't get any sound out of the card except for adlib? When I try to run the utilities for the card it says Card not Found. I tried running the HWSet program with a reset to default EEPROM settings, and I get an error message about not finding the card and that it's running in Debug mode. Debug mode finds all of the settings in the EEPROM and it finds the card, but the software can't? Now I have heard that there is sometimes issues with certain Aztech cards because they use a Crystal chip on them. This card indeed does, and I wondered if that had something to do with it, but I am stymied that the card originally worked and now it doesn't. I have tried it in two other machines and the first windows install works and you get the first windows chime sound and then nothing. And after that the software can't find the card. Have I borked the card? Or is it possible that it needs a refurb? It's got tons of Tantalum (I think that's what they are? Little orange light bulb shaped items) caps along with normal electrolytic capacitors. I've attached a picture of my card below, so if it's a jumper setting please let me know? So is this a software setting somewhere that I screwed up, or is it a dying card? Or is it the Crystal CS4231 chip on it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Nathan

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Reply 1 of 2, by dionb

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These 2nd gen Aztech cards are tricky - I have an MMSN822 (FCC ID is a much more solid way of identifying them than whatever weird and interchangeable marketing names people thought up) with the same AZT1605 chipset. Same issue. Maybe the card is dead, but wouldn't surprise me if the driver is specific to a particular revision or something and failing for that reason. Afraid I can't offer any ore concrete tips at this time.

Consolation: the 2ng gen Aztech cards are basically crap - with SB DSP 2.0 so only mono SB2.0 (and not Pro) support. They're also timing-sensitive. Only consolation is good 16b WSS support from that Crystal codec. No idea about the MPU-401 implementation...

1st gen are noisy, but reliable SBPro-compatibles (some with WSS, some without) and offer Covox/DSS support as extra. 3rd gen are the best IMHO, quiet, compatible (SBPro2 and WSS) and good MIDI, with no PnP.

Reply 2 of 2, by nathanieltolbert

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Using the FCC ID is how I identified which driver to try to install. The card when it was working had perfect clear sound. Cleaner than the Sound Blaster 16 I am currently using. I am only trying to run this card on a 486DX2-66, so I would have thought it wouldn't be much of an issue timing wise? So you recommend a 2316 chip? I have one of the packard bell branded cards the Sound 144AM card which is based on the 2316 chip. It's noisy. I don't know if it's the machine or the card, but there is signal noise on the line. I was hoping for this card because it's good enough for WIndows 3.1 and Dos with Sound Blaster support. The midi is supposed to be decent with no hanging note bug, but I wouldn't know as I haven't tried it. I don't have a wavetable card to attach. What is strange is that it was working fine and then suddenly wasn't. It's currently set to read settings from the EEPROM, but if it can't find the card I guess that's the major issue here.

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