StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Can anyone think of a reason that my sound card would disappear after a soft reboot?

I've had a Sound Blaster audigy for the last couple months, worked fine. The computer it's in isn't connected to the internet (no wireless card to connect to ClearWire). Last weekend I decided in a fit of semi-productivity, to try to feed the PSUs cables through the opening in the back where the PSU was supposed to be connected so I could put the side back on (long story, handmedown comp., case was too small to fit the new PSU inside so my dad just left the side open, worked fine ever since...just a bit worrying since we have ant problems at the house), anyway I couldn't do that because the case is crowded as hell and I couldn't get a good hold on the main connector.

I reconnected everything and noticed that the flash drives weren't connected (probably hadn't been for a while), reconnected those and everything else, turned the computer on. Everything seemed to be working fine until I tried to turn the computer off on sunday and an ending program box appeared saying that windows was ending something called "dummywindow.dll" or something. After that ended the computer just wouldn't shut down, I had to manually turn off the power (via the power button, not the switch on the PSU). When I booted up the computer on monday, it wouldn't recognize my sound card (wasn't listed in the device manager even).

Since then I've found that the computer will usually recognize the card if I shut it down completely, then start it up again. The computer will usually forget the card exists if I do a soft reboot (either telling it to reboot or bringing it out of sleep mode).

I have tried:
-Disabling/enabling/autoing the onboard sound, which if enabled will usually work..but only for the onboard sound, not my PCI card.

-Checking the IRQ of my sound card against any other hardware, there is no conflict there.

-Disconnecting the flash readers.

-Uninstalling and reinstalling the latest drivers.

Oh also if the card isn't being recognized I get this error if I try to run any Creative sound utilities (like volume controls):
"The audio device supported by this application is not present. This application will now end."

So yeah, help would be appreciated.

Only reasons I'm coming up with are "Windows shit its pants when you yanked the power out from under its feet" and "Creative is a festering sore in the computer enthusiast market and I hope their corporate headquarters burns down in a massive fire that bankrupts the company and kills the key decisionmakers there... so their piece of shit product probably shit its pants"



By "flash drives" do you mean the USB ports on the front of the case?

Uraniun235 wrote:Only reasons I'm coming up with are "Windows shit its pants when you yanked the power out from under its feet" and "Creative is a festering sore in the computer enthusiast market and I hope their corporate headquarters burns down in a massive fire that bankrupts the company and kills the key decisionmakers there... so their piece of shit product probably shit its pants"

Those were my guesses too, that or my HD got scratched when I put the computer on its side.

On the plus side though, I seem to have fixed the problem by pretty much taking the computer apart and cleaning each part very thoroughly (there was a nasty looking patch of grime stuck on my video card that I hadn't noticed before...I guess that'll happen when your computer has one side exposed in a high dust environment, and it doesn't get cleaned for over a year ). So I put everything back together (was also able to feed the PSU's cables through the back and replace that one side), booted it up, did a full uninstall/reinstall of the sound card and its drivers (soft rebooting a few times in the process), and everything seems to be fully functional again.

Uranium235 wrote: By "flash drives" do you mean the USB ports on the front of the case?

No they're like...those drives for digital camera memory sticks and stuff, the singe USB port on the front has been connected from the start.

EDIT: Also, whoever designed the guides for the backs of PCI/AGP cards in my case needs a kick to the groin, those things are a GIANT PAIN IN THE ASS.

Ohma wrote:

Uranium235 wrote: By "flash drives" do you mean the USB ports on the front of the case?

No they're like...those drives for digital camera memory sticks and stuff, the singe USB port on the front has been connected from the start.

Oh! Card readers. Gotcha.