First post, by Anonymous Coward
- Rank
- l33t
The other day I found a pc repair shop with a butt load of $5 ISA soundcards, so I helped myself to whatever looked interesting.
Just to restate exactly what my problem is, I have a VLB/EISA motherboard with an ET4000W32P which seems picky about my choice of soundcards. First I tried one of the Labway OPL3-SAX boards, which was rejected (system would not turn on). So I ordered an Aopen AW37 board with CS4235 chip. It worked well, but was too basic for my needs. So then I went all out and got a Turtle Beach Tropez Plus based on CS4232. Unfortunately it was the same deal as with the Yamaha card. The system just wouldn't turn on. However, later I discovered that the stripped down version of the same card (Tropez32 w/CS4232) worked just fine. Go figure.
So anyway, I now have 5 new soundcards, and all but one of them work.
1. Labway LWHA151910. This card is an older version of the Labway card I bought earlier. Only real difference is that the PCB is larger and YMF718 is used rather than YMF719. Does not work in my system. I'm not too surprised. Has IDE and MPU401 headers.
2. Mystery YMF719 card. No markings at all to identify it. Has an MPU401 but no IDE header. Surprisingly it allows the system to boot. I'm really interested in trying this one out, but IDE would have been nice.
3. MF-1868 Rev 2.1 "Binaura 3D". Has IDE and MPU401 headers. Seems to work. Never tried ESS based card before. This one has ES1868F.
4. AV309 "3D Sound". This looks to be related to that CMI SB16 compatible card (AV310) that everyone was talking about. It has a very similar PCB layout. The reason I got this card is not only because it uses CS4232, but because it seems to use a CS4289 chip for FM and possibly wavetable. Has MPU401, but no IDE header.
5. S 16WP1/L. This one uses CS4237B "SRS" and came with a nifty MPU401 DB that uses CS9233 and 1meg sample ROM. I think this board was used in some IBM systems. Looks to be pretty well built, but no IDE connector.
Any opinions on which board I should go wit here? Any theories on why my Tropez Plus doesn't cut the mustard? It almost seems like an IDE port or Joystick port is conflicting with something....
"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium