Win98SE, SoundBlaster Live! installed but no sound coming from card

[actkk]

I just obtained and installed a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 card on my Windows 98SE machine. The installation was a little rocky, but after finishing the installation and restarting, the card is detected under system and shows up under multimedia for sound hardware options. Despite this, I cannot seem to get any sound to come out of the card. I've tried just about every setting for output device in multimedia, I've tried every port on the card, and multiple audio devices. Every audio device worked, and the sound worked fine when I switched back to the on-board sound integrated into the motherboard. I could not get sound to come out of the SB Live! card under any circumstances. If anyone can offer some insight on this then I would be very grateful. Thank you for reading.

 

[SinxarKnights]

i had a lot of issues with mine. I recall I had to use a specific driver disc for it. Even the drivers on the Creative site wouldn't work for some reason. We had another one that came in a dell PC that was the same way, it would only work with the driver on the dell disc, my disc and the download wouldn't work.

Not really that helpful i know sorry. have you tried to put it into a modern machine? it doesn't work properly in Vista and later but there is a driver that will auto install that will make it produce sound. Sounds terrible but you will be able to tell if the card is actually working or not.

 

[actkk]

i had a lot of issues with mine. I recall I had to use a specific driver disc for it. Even the drivers on the Creative site wouldn't work for some reason. We had another one that came in a dell PC that was the same way, it would only work with the driver on the dell disc, my disc and the download wouldn't work.

Not really that helpful i know sorry. have you tried to put it into a modern machine? it doesn't work properly in Vista and later but there is a driver that will auto install that will make it produce sound. Sounds terrible but you will be able to tell if the card is actually working or not.

It's interesting that you mention the Dell part, as this card also came from an old Dell computer. Can you think of any place where I could find that specific driver?

 

[SinxarKnights]

Not really.

You might have some luck Googling the old dell PC model number. Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

 

[actkk]

I contacted the seller of the machine, who sent me a driver to use. This appears to have installed something called Liveware 3.0 (A Creative Labs software) which seems to be working correctly but still I cannot get sound from my card. It seems as if everything is right except the sound card actually producing sound. The computer seems to detect it correctly, the programs working with the sound are working, I am seeing sound is being played in the Windows 98 sound mixer, and the speakers have been tested and shown to work as well. I'm not really sure where else to go with this one. Maybe I just need to completely uninstall the card and all drivers and re-install them.

 

[Reyaz123]

You could try locating troubleshooting it using "device manager". May help