What are the specs of the system you are testing in?

Which sound are you talking about?

This card has multiple sources:
- OPL3 FM
- DA
- Wave from the onboard wavetable

All have separate volume settings in the mixer. As you don't mention the mixer, I suspect you aren't using it yet. That might just be the problem.

I agree with the previous feedback.

We need to know what are you system specifications, operating system under which you're testing the card and whether you have installed the drivers for this card (available on Vogons drivers or from here: ftp://ftp.aztech.com/support/DOWNLOAD/sg/WRIDER/)

Here are the specs:

- Mainboard FREETECH P5F93 (SSocket7 1*AGP, 2*ISA, 3*PCI, 2*SIMM 2*DIMM, UIDEx2, USB)
- CPU AMD k6-2-400mhz (Intel Pentium 75MHz as reserve)
- Memory Micron 392 512 MB RAM DIMM 100MHz
- GPU Riva TNT2 32MB ATI Rage PRO
Turbo AGP 8MB + 2* VooDoo 2 12 MB
- HDD WD 80GB IDE UDMA66
- 1x LG CDRW, 2* DVD Lite-On drives
- PSU 400w PFC
- Samsung SyncMaster 941MP

- Mainboard FIC PA-2010+
- CPU Intel Pentium I 75Mhz SX 969
- Memory 96 MB RAM DIMM 100Mhz
- HDD Seagate U10 8GB
- GPU S3 Trio VX PCI
- Liteon Combo Drive dvd/cdrw

Tried out the mixer - no luck, drivers installed.
Windows 95/98/DOS - all the same, almost nothing I can hear 😒

Spitz wrote on 2020-10-18, 16:56:

Here are the specs: […]
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Here are the specs:

- Mainboard FREETECH P5F93 (SSocket7 1*AGP, 2*ISA, 3*PCI, 2*SIMM 2*DIMM, UIDEx2, USB)
- CPU AMD k6-2-400mhz (Intel Pentium 75MHz as reserve)
- Memory Micron 392 512 MB RAM DIMM 100MHz
- GPU Riva TNT2 32MB ATI Rage PRO
Turbo AGP 8MB + 2* VooDoo 2 12 MB
- HDD WD 80GB IDE UDMA66
- 1x LG CDRW, 2* DVD Lite-On drives
- PSU 400w PFC
- Samsung SyncMaster 941MP

- Mainboard FIC PA-2010+
- CPU Intel Pentium I 75Mhz SX 969
- Memory 96 MB RAM DIMM 100Mhz
- HDD Seagate U10 8GB
- GPU S3 Trio VX PCI
- Liteon Combo Drive dvd/cdrw

Tried out the mixer - no luck, drivers installed.
Windows 95/98/DOS - all the same, almost nothing I can hear 😒

Try running the Diagnose.exe utility of the sound card under DOS. What happens when you run the FM music, Sound Blaster 8-bit and 16-bit tests? Do they all exhibit the same problem?

Sadly... yes! Just ran this test... I can hear some corrupted sound which is very very quiet 😒

Spitz wrote on 2020-10-18, 18:46:

Sadly... yes! Just ran this test... I can hear some corrupted sound which is very very quiet 😒

If the problem persists under both the FM and digital voice tests, then it's not something wrong with the FM chip or DAC itself, but some other component (perhaps an amplifier chip).
Unfortunately, I'm not that knowledgeable in this field, but perhaps someone else can offer more insight on where the possible problem could be.

Another option is to try the sound card in another computer (preferably a slower one) or, try and slow down your current PC.
If that doesn't make any difference, try to replace all the capacitors on the sound card - hopefully your soldering skills are better than mine.

Spitz wrote on 2020-10-18, 18:46:

Sadly... yes! Just ran this test... I can hear some corrupted sound which is very very quiet 😒

I have one Aztech Waverider with similar problem, at first testing it was very quiet, later it became completly silent. If you can find the source of the problem, please let me know.

The problem is most probably dried up capacitors, there are a bunch of 1µF ones that don't take much to degrade beyond usefulness compared to a 10µF one.

Thanks for the help guys. OK I need to make some shopping and I'll let You know about the results - I'll change caps.

Still no time and lack of caps in storage, but I've managed to take the old ones out.... You were right, some of them were rubbish, two of them behaved like a bad ass diode ... ufff tuesday I'll recieve package so I can finish this work.

I changed caps on my Aztech Explorer this weekend too. My problem described here: Help to identify an Aztech soundcard
So at first try after repair, no luck with original driver package, wavetide.exe just does not recognise card (same with Aztech diagnose software). So i experimented with different Aztech drivers and finally luck with some pnp card drivers got the card alive (SB FM sound) and wavetide found card too (wavetable). So at the moment it works combined with 2 different card drivers. 😀 It was painful experience getting this card alive, but output quality is cristalclear and ymf262+wavetable sound is on most games very nice, so it was worth hassle. Even MT32 emulation (wavetide.exe /MT) sound is pretty good.

Nice piece of hardware indeed! Currently 80% caps changed, tommorow I'll pick the rest and I will test it 😉

That's it guys, Will test it tonight and I'll let You know bout the results 😜

Success after laying down almost 22 yrs in wardrobe 😁

So I had go back to this problem again. After few minutes of using this card back in 2020 it stopped to give any sound loud enough.. same problem - corrupted sound + very very silent. At that time I had no more juke to work on it 😀

Lately I put a diagnose that amp went down... After change: NO MORE PROBLEMS... So if somebody has an Aztech card and chip TDA1517 having similar problems, change this one and You should bring it to life again.

By the way.. IMO this is the best ISA soundcard for DOS gaming. No clicking, very loud, compatibilty with SB, SB16, SB PRO, and it has Wavefront chip on it so I can enjoy and play dos games in 2022... With totally new experience. I highly recommend this card, which btw is WaveRider32+ version. I will do some YT material about this one later one as it really deserve it.

psychofox wrote on 2020-11-16, 08:27:

Even MT32 emulation (wavetide.exe /MT) sound is pretty good.

i will add this card to the list in my other thread where i am tracking onboard wavetable cards capable of mt-32 presets. it's turning out to be most of them.

stanwebber wrote on 2022-12-17, 09:49:

psychofox wrote on 2020-11-16, 08:27:

Even MT32 emulation (wavetide.exe /MT) sound is pretty good.

i will add this card to the list in my other thread where i am tracking onboard wavetable cards capable of mt-32 presets. it's turning out to be most of them.

Just checked this and I can confirm that it works well for MT-32 with this switch on.

Hi guys.

I know that this thread is quite old but I own such a soundcard too.
My problem is similar but a little different also. My card works perfectly fine but FM sound from the YMF-262 is much too quiet. To have it balanced I have to reduce digital to half (8/16).
Wavetable is loud enough but is joined with FM volumewise. So it is far too loud compared to the reduced digital sound.
Any Ideas what the reason behind the reduced FM sound may be? There are no other issues with the card.

Edit: To those of you who are interested: I solved the problem on my own. Following the YAC 512 datasheet, the analog outputs are directly conected to the input of an opamp without gain, a simple buffer. Aztech put a resistor (10k) in series to each YAC output. I replaced them with lower values and voila! Problem gone!
Too bad these wonderful cards don't have output filtering and bass/treble controls anymore...

Thanks in advance,
Thomas