What machine is this on?

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

What machine is this on?

"Project 486" in my signature. I can only assume CPU speed is not the issue here.

Yea that should be fine. Do try the turbo button though, just to be sure.

Have you tried the CT1600 in a different machine to see if the problem follows it?

clueless1 wrote:

Have you tried the CT1600 in a different machine to see if the problem follows it?

No, but it's a good idea; I'll try tomorrow on the Pentium rig.

One thing to note, the problem disappears when I use an SB16 CT2800. All signs still pointing to obscure defect/ESD damage. 😢

CT1600 is fine on a Pentium233MMX, all the sounds are there in Tyrian2000.
As suggested by others, try your 'project pentium'.

Ugh.

Just checked the back of the card, there are several scratches along some of the traces. Almost certainly from getting knocked around with other cards during shipping.

I think we may have found the cause. Lesson learned:
DON'T. BUY. ANYTHING. FROM. SCRAPPERS.

^^^^^intense overreaction above, pls disregard^^^^^

Scratches doesn't mean the trace has discontinuity.
Practically all old cards you'll buy have been held in a big dusty box in the garage with other cards so scratches, bruises and a thick layer of dust, are inevitable.
Also, if the card works and reaches steady state without fluctuating audible abnormalities, it's probably is NOT a Capacitor or ESD damage.

New discovery: if I turn off the music in the setup program, I can get the menu SFX for much longer. Still no sound in-game, even at the title screen. If I hold down an arrow key to cycle through the options in setup and play the beeping sound continuously, I hear some crackles and pops in between. Not a good sign. I did not notice this on the SB16.

EDIT: The crackles and pops occur even without a single sound playing. Only here, too. They seem to occur in pairs, one second in between each pop.

What resources have you got your card configured to?

Try IRQ 5 instead of 7 and / or disable the printer port on your PC.

Right now at the default settings: A220, I5, D1, T4. I tried every DMA as well as IRQ 5 and 7, but I didn't think of disabling the parallel port. I'll try that.

There is one trace on the board with a scratch deep enough where you can see copper; it leads from pin 20 (5V) on a Motorola LS244 chip, to the left-most pin on the bottom of the Creative CT1336 chip.

I've now tried every combination of IRQ (2, 5, 7, 10) and DMA (0, 1, 3), via setting jumpers and adjusting the SET BLASTER command in autoexec.bat to match, and also totally disabled both parallel and serial ports. Still no luck.

Did you try in another system yet?

James-F wrote:

Did you try in another system yet?

I plan to tomorrow morning. Will get back to you then. It's 12:25 AM where i am now, I'm not a late-nighter and I'm exhausted.

This seems like a really basic thing, but have you tried booting clean? What do your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files look like?

'

Alright.

Good news: all sound effects work with the SBPro plugged into the Pentium rig, using the same exact drivers and configuration (I literally copied them off the 486's hard drive). I played for two hours straight so I know there's gotta be nothing wrong with the card anymore.

Bad news: still no idea why it won't cooperate with the 486.

So this may end up being a problem with the motherboard. It is a DFI G486VPC with one PCI slot and a VIA 496G chipset. VIA made some infamously bad chipsets but I don't believe this is one of them?
I will try taking out my Ethernet card, which is the only other ISA card in the machine. There is an S3 Vision968 in the PCI slot.

It might be a DMA "clog", some games send too much data and overflow the DMA buffers on the motherboard.
Try Alien Carnage (freeware) http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/alien-carnage/ it send tons of interrupt calls, it uses MOD samples for music.
Maybe even try a standalone MOD player like Open Cubic Player for DOS.

Yeah but Jazz Jackrabbit? Have you tried it on maximum quality just to see what happens?