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C-Media ASC-9408A + CS4231A-KL based cards initialization issues

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First post, by DW12

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Hi, I own 3 cards that are based around same chips - the CompuMedia ASC-9408A and the Crystal CS4231A-KL. I've got 2 Gallant SC-6600 V2.0 cards:

The attachment IMG_20260904_233253_MP.jpg is no longer available

And a Gallant SC-7000 V2.0:

The attachment IMG_20260904_233400_MP.jpg is no longer available

I've tried to test them on 4 different boards (super socket 7 with VIA chipset, socket 7 AT board with Intel chipset and 2 slot 1 boards, one with VIA and one with 440BX chipset) and none of them are detected as a PNP device on the POST screen, which of course leads to them not being recognized in DOS/Windows. Am I missing something or it's really bad luck and all 3 of these sound cards are defective? The second SC-6600 V.2.0 (not the one in the picture above) looks to be in pristine condition, I don't think that there is anything wrong with them physically. I've checked the voltage on voltage regulators that are in top right corner on all of these cards and all 3 regulators seem to work fine. Do anyone have an idea what to try next? I'm mostly interested in getting the SC-7000 to work, as it has OPL4 onboard.

Reply 1 of 5, by gerwin

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DW12 wrote on 2026-09-04, 21:59:

Do anyone have an idea what to try next?

I have a similar card:
https://amoretro.de/2011/06/terratec-maestro-16.html
That card worked with the DOS drivers, when I tested it.
Have you tried the DOS drivers, in case the card is not PnP at all?

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Reply 2 of 5, by DW12

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Well, a thought that these cards may not be PnP crossed my mind. I've only tried a generic CS423X DOS driver and that didn't work. The other thing is it seems to be hard to find drivers for the C-Media ASC-9408A variants of sound cards, even now googling "Terratec Maestro 16 driver" got me only links for Opti drivers. I see there is a video on "Karl's IT Retro" website about Terratec Maestro 16 with C-Media chip (https://www.karlsitretro.com/terratec-maestro-16-review/). I will check drivers linked there and report back.

Reply 3 of 5, by gerwin

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DW12 wrote on 2026-09-05, 20:17:

Well, a thought that these cards may not be PnP crossed my mind. I've only tried a generic CS423X DOS driver and that didn't work. The other thing is it seems to be hard to find drivers for the C-Media ASC-9408A variants of sound cards, even now googling "Terratec Maestro 16 driver" got me only links for Opti drivers. I see there is a video on "Karl's IT Retro" website about Terratec Maestro 16 with C-Media chip (https://www.karlsitretro.com/terratec-maestro-16-review/). I will check drivers linked there and report back.

That Crystal Codec chip has no driver and does not need one.
As for Maestro 16 (also sold as Maestro 32 with 4MB Wavetable addon), here are the drivers I had stored:
https://www.transferxl.com/download/08vgryH0ZV3C2j
Also added similar Gallant SC-6000 drivers.

Edit, this may be more useful:
Gallant SC-6600 rev 2.0
Also:
Request for driver Gallant SC-7000 ver 2.0
And:
https://archive.org/details/soundcarddrivergallantSC6600

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Reply 4 of 5, by DW12

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Ok, so I ran the SC6600V2 driver installer in Windows 3.1, that added a initialization line to CONFIG.SYS and after reboot the SC-6600 started to work. Then I swapped the card to SC-7000 and got an IRQ initialization error while booting to DOS. I also tried running a CF card with Windows 98SE installation, I went through a process of scanning the system for non-PnP devices and Windows detected a gameport and a Sound Blaster Pro compatible device, however couldn't initilize the card properly. At least that tells me that the card is trying to work. I will try Windows 95 with some different drivers, maybe that will be more appropriate for this card.

Reply 5 of 5, by gerwin

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DW12 wrote on Yesterday, 19:05:

.., that added a initialization line to CONFIG.SYS and after reboot the SC-6600 started to work.

Good to hear you got some progress there.

All these DOS driver packages seem to have a Sound.sys file as their core. Last one being 4.982 Bytes / Dated 14-08-1995.

Can also load it from the command line instead of Config.sys, with the devload utility:
devload C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\sound.sys /I:7/D:1/MIRQ:5/G:1/CDT:0/CDP:230/SSP:530

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