Oscillator crystals has space inside and dent does not affect the function. Unless it was broken.

Inspect rest of the sound card for bad solder joints especially the fine pitch SMD ICs. And anything touching together need to be separated carefully with a razor.

Cheers,

Any physical damage to component is usually not a good sign. It's possible the dented crystal has been damaged internally. I would also inspect for other physical damage because if the card has seen some impacts strong enough to dent a crystal, there could be other damage as well.

Do you have a multimeter to test for things like shorts and continuity?

Sometimes it can be as simple narrowing down to a single faulty component and then replacing that component.

If that AWE32 is a non-PNP model, Windows would not detect it by default. You would have to manually install it using the "Add New Hardware" wizard.

I suggest trying Creative's DIAGNOSE.EXE in pure DOS first, to see if it can detect the AWE32. If it can't, then your card might be damaged.

Just run UNISOUND in pure DOS.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-10-12, 18:45:

If that AWE32 is a non-PNP model, Windows would not detect it by default. You would have to manually install it using the "Add New Hardware" wizard.

And if the AWE32 is a PNP model and Windows doesn't detect it, the PnP information may be damaged. There are two helpful threads here on VOGONs that contain the required information, tools and data to re-flash the PnP information.

I've had a bunch of used hardware come to me with dented crystal oscillators over the years, it's never been a problem

I have one PCI sound card, which was hit on the crystal - it was broken, I mean replacing it - make the card working again. so, in this case - nothing is for sure.

I swapped the mainboard because I got the feeling the soundcard wasn‘t sitting well in it‘s slot. This board (GA-6BXC with PIII-550) works for sure so that’s one error source I can exclude.
Oh, and I tried the Add new hardware function in Win98 and selected the SB16 / AWE32 but obviously nothing was found.

I‘ll try the AWE with this gigabyte board after work.

Kouwes wrote on 2023-10-13, 05:36:

and I tried the Add new hardware function in Win98

IMHO, best is to do the simplest possible test - and that's in DOS:

Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

and you can skip the step0 - as you don't need to short any pins in your case.

Well, the card works after all! Seems it just didn’t like that supersocket 7 board.
Win98SE not only recognizes the card, it will also install the drivers.

mattw wrote on 2023-10-12, 23:32:

I have one PCI sound card, which was hit on the crystal - it was broken, I mean replacing it - make the card working again. so, in this case - nothing is for sure.

Yeah, it's a case of, the crystal has plenty of room in there, and damage at about a less than a third of the dimension is unlikely to have contacted it, BUT a shock impact that caused a dent like that, vs maybe a weight/pressure dent, could have shocked the crystal enough to crack it or dislodge it's internal connections.