I've run into an interesting situation that has been occurred during my Windows 98 SE Pentium 4 retro build. I have a few SB Live! cards -- SB0220, CT4620, and CT4760 -- and I have been working with a ECS PM800-M2 motherboard that uses a VIA PM800 chipset and VIA VT8237 southbridge. The rest of the build is a Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 1GB DDR SDRAM, and an SD Card and an IDE adapter for a hard drive. I'm running Windows 98 SE with security updates, but not the unofficial SP3 package. I've installed the drivers for the chipset that came with the motherboard, and though it has onboard video and sound that work, they are disabled in the BIOS. I currently have no other hardware issues with the PC except this one.

Originally, I installed the CT4620 and then installed the drivers from the Creative Labs SB Live! Driver CD. First, when installing the VXD drivers, Windows would hang and I would get no response. The program would crash and, even after waiting a significant amount of time (> half hour), it would still be showing the "Updating Windows Drivers" message. I would have to do a hard reset or skip the VXD drivers and install the WDM drivers instead. When Windows restarted, it would load the drivers, but when it got to the SB16 Emulation driver, it would throw a BSOD and stop.

At first, I thought this was due to a hardware failure with the card, perhaps it was damaged by ESD. I installed the SB0220 (knowing full well, it's a Dell OEM card with the full featured processor), and while it also hung with the VXD drivers, it worked with the WDM drivers and did not throw a BSOD when installing the SB16 emulator. In fact, I got Windows 98SE to play sound and music for classic DOS games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D, DOOM, and Quake, using this card.

I also had a CT4760, and tried that -- but got the same BSOD when Windows tried to install the SB16 Emulator from the Creative OEM driver CD. Since the error repeated with two different cards at the same point, I think the error might be either software or compatibility.

Both CT4620 and CT4760 cards could be ESD damaged...I got them cheap on Ebay, but the CT4620 was working perfectly in another retro computer, this one a Pentium III with an Intel chipset.

Is this a known issue with SB Live! cards and VIA chipsets or is it something else?