I don't mean to double post but on the off chance anyone else is having an issue or experiment like this here an update:

I solved the port issue, here is the solution:

DO NOT GOOGLE IT AS "MIDI GAMEPORT" that returns it with USB and DIN5:

THE CORRECT SEARCH TERM IS "DB15 CONNECTOR" here it is returning the correct results:

as to the CSP/ASP 1748a chip, the weird google bug is back:

you guys must have thought I was joking about google being useless. slightly off and it can't parse the search. here is with an on the nose, to the letter search and its returning dog medicine. I DON'T EVEN OWN A DOG!

... dear lord I hope this doesn't turn into a thread of me responding to myself over the course of three months as I struggle through stumbling over my own feet. having the ultimate toolset and a knack for repair is meaningless when I'm blundering about in the dark with no experience on what I'm asking about and a woefully inadequate vocabulary; such that one might think they were talking to the little mermaid when asking me to name tools and parts. or it could go like last night where people accused me of being a "lying drunken AI with ADHD" I mean touche on the ADHD thing but deeply confused and concerned as to how they think an AI could get drunk. but I digress.

lesson learned. always post pics, document every thing, every step of the way, double check the photos saved, post logs if there are any when dealing with weird crap no one has heard of as well as when you are being sent in circles by incomplete answers. so here I am posting with with pics about the weird google bug as well as a partial solution. *glaDOS voice* am I doing it right fellow humans?

maybe I gotta ask you the remaining questions in different terms like with google, you know since being friendly and personable like a human being isn't working:

1. is the there a known good DSP version I can swap in, what should I be looking for?
2. is there a place to get the CSP/ASP chip or should I just wait for a "for parts" listing to come up with the chip?
3. is the OPL chip interchangeable with anything else that is better or not, would I have to add in other missing components to make it work if one could be swapped in? there are a bunch of empty pads here and its making me nervous about trying. I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for and what is better.

RetroVixen2K wrote on 2023-01-17, 04:50:

[...]

1. is the there a known good DSP version I can swap in, what should I be looking for?

See this topic:
Sound Blaster 16 DSP replacement success

No DSP is completely 'good' as they all suffer from MPU-401 slowdown when playing 16b audio - but CT1741 DSP versions 4.04 and 4.05 are free of hanging note bugs (so is 4.16, but that's integrated into the AWE64 chip so can't be transplanted). They were found on (some of) the oldest CT1730-CT1790 cards.

2. is there a place to get the CSP/ASP chip or should I just wait for a "for parts" listing to come up with the chip?

None that I'm aware of. They were quite rare (as generally quite useless too). Probably best to salvage from unrecoverably damaged card (preferably one with a suitable old CT1741 DSP too).

3. is the OPL chip interchangeable with anything else that is better or not, would I have to add in other missing components to make it work if one could be swapped in? there are a bunch of empty pads here and its making me nervous about trying. I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for and what is better.

Yes and yes.

The CT1978 is the CQM chip. You can replace that with a YMF289 low-voltage OPL3 on the other pad - but you also need to replace the supporting components. There's a topic for that too of course:
I de-CQMed my AWE32 PnP CT3990...!
(the CT3990 is very similar to the CT2950, although some components are numbered differently and slightly differently oriented)

I must say you've gotten me curious too. I also have a CT2950 - and a dying CT1750 MCD with DSP 4.05. My plan was to re-cap the CT1750, and tbh that's still the plan, as the issues (right channel missing, left channel only works if speaker amp is selected, and noisy as hell even then, far worse than even a bad old CT1701 should be) are almost certainly in the analog part of it. If that fails though it could be the ideal donor for DSP to de-bug the newer card. Conversely it would be interesting to replace the CT1701 DAC on the CT1750 with a quieter one - that would make it just about the ideal SB16, as far as such a beast could exist.

RetroVixen2K wrote on 2023-01-14, 10:50:

The soundblaster 16 I've been repairing needs a new port. I tested the lines with a bunch of them pirate hook lookin probe thing […]
Show full quote

The soundblaster 16 I've been repairing needs a new port. I tested the lines with a bunch of them pirate hook lookin probe thingies to see if it worked past the header, it does. The port is just crudded up with midi-cheese. (yeah I don't know how to properly describe that gunk or the tool names but I know how to use the tools and that's what's important)
IMG_20230114_050038_500~2.jpg
If you are wondering about the gold recap: this was the board that mysteriously showed up in my shop "parts and repair" drawer unit looking like it suffered a tragic doorstop accident with the capacitors sheered off and it took half a year to painstakingly find/match/order/receive exact original value caps in gold. (either there was a shortage or they stopped making certain voltages. either way I wasn't gonna screw around even if some old guys on youtube say "its fine to go upwards" dad said don't screw around changing values and I trust him) The reason for gold caps? I remember the one I had as a kid sounded kinda crap and I didn't want to risk ordering the wrong type of cap. Gold audio grade make have been a dollar or two more for the convenience of not having to do more research than was necessary beyond basic values. My dad warned me about caps that may look exactly the same but do something completely different so gold caps saved me a lot of unnecessary risk.

I tested the sound and it did make a dramatic difference in channel peaking. smoothed out the sound in a way that made it far less violent and more melodious. This leads me to believe creative cheaped out as gold caps alone shouldn't make such a dramatic difference. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw the same brand OEM capacitors in a pair of crappy acer speakers from the 90s. this puts me in a bit of a spot because now I like it enough to want to keep it. I was not expecting that.

Also beyond the needed gameport, where can I get an ASP/CSP expansion chip for it? My dad had the voice software floppies from his sb16 from back in the day which had the expansion socket/chip. However he traded his for a gravis ultrasound from a coworker then found it was crap. I'd love to futz with the software and expansion, seems silly and stupid leaving that spot blank when it could do more. Moreover is there a better/high quality OPL FM chip I can drop in like a Yamaha? Or a DSP chip without hanging notes? The gold caps made hanging notes less noticeable and added a cool "fade out" effect on program exit so it sounds like it was meant to do it. But I dunno, I wanna see how many improvements I can make to this thing and push it to the limit. Plus having it fully decked out with ever type of expansion would make it more worth keeping around. Seeing as it was broken when I found it and its a "known issues" model I can't see much harm in going all the way with this thing.

You aren't missing out on much with the asp chip , I got one just mostly because the empty socket on my sb16 was bugging me xD.

TFX is the only game that supports it and the effect is really underwhelming to the point you wouldn't even notice it , it just kinda pans the audio around.

Only other app that uses it is creatives 2 test utilitys that again just kinda pan the audio about but to help with speaker placement.

Its only other function is audio decompression but if you have a pentium or faster thats also pointless.

Electromyne.de did happen to have some like last year and I got one after scouring the web but I paid a princely sum of 50 aud which was probably wayyy too much.

They had like 6 or 7 of them but they all seem to have sold out since then.

I guess if you are super desperate keep tabs on thier ebay store but again its not really worth the hassle.

AppleSauce wrote on 2023-01-17, 10:06:

You aren't missing out on much with the asp chip , I got one just mostly because the empty socket on my sb16 was bugging me xD. […]
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You aren't missing out on much with the asp chip , I got one just mostly because the empty socket on my sb16 was bugging me xD.

TFX is the only game that supports it and the effect is really underwhelming to the point you wouldn't even notice it , it just kinda pans the audio around.

Only other app that uses it is creatives 2 test utilitys that again just kinda pan the audio about but to help with speaker placement.

Its only other function is audio decompression but if you have a pentium or faster thats also pointless.

Electromyne.de did happen to have some like last year and I got one after scouring the web but I paid a princely sum of 50 aud which was probably wayyy too much.

They had like 6 or 7 of them but they all seem to have sold out since then.

I guess if you are super desperate keep tabs on thier ebay store but again its not really worth the hassle.

yeah... that does sound incredibly underwhelming/not worth it but... on the other hand the OCD is gonna make my teeth itch if something isn't bringing the job to "completion" there used to be an entire industry around "fake chips" to make things look better" than they really were. problem is even if the real chip isn't doing much I would still know if it was a fake one and that would bother me even more. plus I still got my dad's old speech synthesis software that came with his card and that supposedly used the ASP for some reason. keyword supposedly... considering I'm about to be selling off a metric craptonne of stuff I can't use. I might have the money for a crazy impulse purchase like that by the time they get more. I'll keep an eye out for that.

thank you for letting me know where to look. that is far more help than google has been in the last two months.

dionb wrote on 2023-01-17, 09:40:

See this topic: Sound Blaster 16 DSP replacement success […]
Show full quote

RetroVixen2K wrote on 2023-01-17, 04:50:

[...]

1. is the there a known good DSP version I can swap in, what should I be looking for?

See this topic:
Sound Blaster 16 DSP replacement success

No DSP is completely 'good' as they all suffer from MPU-401 slowdown when playing 16b audio - but CT1741 DSP versions 4.04 and 4.05 are free of hanging note bugs (so is 4.16, but that's integrated into the AWE64 chip so can't be transplanted). They were found on (some of) the oldest CT1730-CT1790 cards.

2. is there a place to get the CSP/ASP chip or should I just wait for a "for parts" listing to come up with the chip?

None that I'm aware of. They were quite rare (as generally quite useless too). Probably best to salvage from unrecoverably damaged card (preferably one with a suitable old CT1741 DSP too).

3. is the OPL chip interchangeable with anything else that is better or not, would I have to add in other missing components to make it work if one could be swapped in? there are a bunch of empty pads here and its making me nervous about trying. I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for and what is better.

Yes and yes.

The CT1978 is the CQM chip. You can replace that with a YMF289 low-voltage OPL3 on the other pad - but you also need to replace the supporting components. There's a topic for that too of course:
I de-CQMed my AWE32 PnP CT3990...!
(the CT3990 is very similar to the CT2950, although some components are numbered differently and slightly differently oriented)

I must say you've gotten me curious too. I also have a CT2950 - and a dying CT1750 MCD with DSP 4.05. My plan was to re-cap the CT1750, and tbh that's still the plan, as the issues (right channel missing, left channel only works if speaker amp is selected, and noisy as hell even then, far worse than even a bad old CT1701 should be) are almost certainly in the analog part of it. If that fails though it could be the ideal donor for DSP to de-bug the newer card. Conversely it would be interesting to replace the CT1701 DAC on the CT1750 with a quieter one - that would make it just about the ideal SB16, as far as such a beast could exist.

yeah, maybe touching the DSP, if the hanging note problem is just on closing a program and it now has a cool fade effect with the repairs, I don't see a reason to possibly introduce a worse problem.

the real problem is that most often when I see a "for parts and repair" its usually listed as a "lol jk, its just untested" with zero visible damage and its bad enough I got one card I need to find a use for let alone a second I don't know anything about and don't want to be ripping apart something good. so getting a ASP/CSP might hold more risk of getting stuck with a working card I wont want to break.

I'll look into the OPL stuff. thank you muchly for the link. a high quality OPL might make a big difference with everything else I've done.

here is where I am at now:

fresh out of the iso bath, had to get the flux off it. once it dries I'll give you an update. I had to replace far more than just the crudded up DB15. the jacks were similarly corroded and gunked up, so I replaced them too. I'm gonna keep telling myself its just MIDI cheese build up from the prior owner listening to bad tunes because I don't want to speculate on what it actually was.

I also found the CD-ROM that went with the original my dad had before he got that cursed gravis ultrasound. damn thing made E1M1 sound like it was being shredded on banjos. which might be fun for redneck rampage since but its kind of an atmosphere ruiner for doom.

I'm dreading the day I find what box he buried the gravis in.

anyway I'm thinking of pairing the SB16 CT2950 "homebrew gold" with that weird VIA cyrix chip I bought for the secondary back up DOS gaming machine for the really frequency sensitive games.

There were some CT2950 that had the OPL3 chips instead of the CQM, maybe ask on this forum for some high res pics to figure out what to swap and replace.

I have a CT2950 w/CQM unfortunately or I would help. I never thought about recapping mine until now, I just remember when I bought it new back in the day it was not an expensive card.

edit: found the link I was thinking of Re: Sound Blaster 16 PnP CT2950 with genuine OPL

Grem Five wrote on 2023-01-21, 19:05:

There were some CT2950 that had the OPL3 chips instead of the CQM, maybe ask on this forum for some high res pics to figure out what to swap and replace.

I have a CT2950 w/CQM unfortunately or I would help. I never thought about recapping mine until now, I just remember when I bought it new back in the day it was not an expensive card.

edit: found the link I was thinking of Re: Sound Blaster 16 PnP CT2950 with genuine OPL

brilliant, exactly what I was looking for. now I know the name of a target chip.

in theory it might be worth recapping any old board just on the basis of old bad rubber seals rotting away from 30~40 years of dryrot and heat. but I don't really know what condition your board is in. I'd say if its working don't screw with it unless you have the right tools. I learned that the hard way with subpar tools ruining a motherboard on a simple recap. getting the right tools may have set me back a bit but it was worth it as its dead simple to get professional results with high end tools even with my shakey hands. 90% of the skill is in the quality of the tools. however having a really good tool set with everything you need may be worth it simply for the fact you'll always have what you need on hand to fix anything afterwards.

just as a little update: I had to give it a second iso bath as there was still a little flux left so I will test it tomorrow. last night I got sidetracked reading up on DOS2k and completing a lamp project, then I had to cook with the wife.