So, a few months ago I managed to salvage a rather well kept AWE64 from my workplace, and while it hasn’t seen too much use because of the issues I am going to be talking about, I do kind of like the card enough to want to keep it from being, well, a paperweight. As for the issues, the card seems to sound fine some of the time, but when using general midi the volume will suddenly get comically loud and will stay at that unbearable level until the system is shut off. There will also be instances where there isn’t a volume issue, but the games, usually Duke Nukem 3D and Doom, will hang between frames at times. When using my Aureal Vortex 2 and or Yamaha ISA card to play the same games both in actual DOS or in Windows 98, they run as well as one would expect a later P2/3 system to.

Below are images of the card. While it doesn’t seem like any of the caps are bad, I would potentially be able to replace them if it came to that. There is also a rather odd looking thing going on at C25 next to the CT1703-A chip.

The card from above.

A side view to show if there’s bulging that I can’t see.

The aforementioned C25 issue.