I finally managed to get windows installed, and have located the drivers for my onboard sound card.

Having big probs installing the driver though. Its a Via based board, an FIC mainboard. I first went to the FIC site, and downloaded the drivers. Couldnt get them to work. So I downloaded a set of drivers from the VIA site. Having problems installing them also.

Do I need to configure my BIOS somehow? I have enabled what seems to be the on board sound in the integrated peripherals section.

What am I doing wrong?

Is there like a bog standard set of drivers that can be installed?

bubblegum what is the make & model number of your mother board

Its an FIC mainboard. The model is either an AZ11, or an AZ31 (I dont have the manual, so I am not sure which). I checked on the FIC website, and the drivers are the same for both boards so that should not matter?

Please help!

Try enabling the sound from BIOS, usually autodetects drivers after its been enabled.

I Just been to the site and your board can either have a via,intel,sis + others based board.
So first off we gotto know what the board is and what on board chip it has.
Quick way to do this ( without taking the side off is)
1. goto this site and download this free prog if you dont have it Sandra sisoftware it will tell us what we need to know.
http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=&location=sware_dl&langx=en&a=
2.Install this prog & run it.
3.when you have the prog up , click on the icon "mainboard info"
4. when it reads (only takes seconds . Write down
System mainboard (model) then scroll down to "on board sound devices and it will tell you the chip for your on board sound
Then goto fic website and download the driver for the correct board and chip & you os 98, xp etc.
other way is to download all the different drivers for all of the chip sets and try 1 at a time(personally I wouldn't do it this way).
Let me know how you get on.
lemo


...bloody hell my spelling is getting worse ...thank god for the edit button

I do actually have the side off the machine, and its a VIA chip on it. I tried the drivers but cant get them to work. I'm off to bed soon, but I will try out the Sandra software in the morning. Will let you know how I get on

Looking again at the site I would guess that it these drivers
VIA 8231/8233 Audio Driver ver. 5.12 you got.
When you unzip them is there a setup file in there you can just double click?

Yes I think so mate why?

Have you double clicked the setup icon to install the drivers?

Yes of course. The installation begins, and then 1 of 2 strange things will happen. The machine either restarts itself, or the installation gets like half way through, and then a window pops up with new hardware found 'windows will locate the software' But it will not install the drivers. Keep getting errors etc. In my BIOS, there seem to be 2 devices listed as sound devices. 1 said like 'on board sound' or something, and the other says 'sound blaster'. I enabled them both. Do u think perhaps one needs to be disabled or sumething?

Seems like you have an on board sound & a creative soundblaster card on also. I'm not familiar with this board but if this is the case is then you goto pick one or the other if you disable the soundblaster in the bios then try and click set up again .
If you disable the on board you gonna have to get the drivers from here
for the soundblaster
http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/drivers/

Just been trying some things now. I installed the driver from the FIC website. That installed no probs, but still no sound, so I uninstalled it. Tried then to install the driver I got from the VIA website, and the system stops responding and restarts.
My BIOS is as follows:

Advanced chipset features:
Onchip sound ENABLE

Inegrated peripherals:
Onboard legacy audio ENABLE
Soundblaster ENABLE
SB I/O base address 220H
SB IRQ select IRQ5
SB DMA select DMA1

When I disable the sound blaster, no sound. If I then enable the soundblaster and disable the onboard legacy audio, everything below the soundblaster line becomes inacessible(disabled). I have tried all sorts of configurations, but I think that both the onboard legacy, and soundblaster need to be enabled.
I think I might have to change the lines below the soundblaster, but dont really know what they are.

On the soundblaster website, there are different drivers, which should I try?

BTW, SANDRA does not show any on board sound devices. When I try add new hardware in control panel, windows says that the ac 97 audio device will not be accessed as windows stopped responding when last trying to access it.

Have tried to give as much info as possible. Should I just give in and try to get a PCI sound card?

M8 I went here and downloaded your motherboard manual that is if it is the AZ11.
http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/document.aspx?model_id=2

It says set as follows
In Bios

1. In Advanced chipset features set (ON CHIP SOUND to ENABLE)this is 11 down in the menu.
2. In Intergrated peripharls (scroll down to ) On Board legacy Audio to ENABLE. Soundblaster to DISABLE The SB stuff as 220h IRQ 5 DMA 1 is as you have it.

So set disable for soundblaster.

Further in the web site its goes on about known IRQ routing probs under 98SE have a look here and see if any of the download patches may be relevent.
http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/faq.aspx?type=win98

Q4: Why does my VIA chipset-based motherboard crash under Windows98? 1/1/2000
A: This problem is caused by incorrect assignment of IRQ by Microsoft® Windows98. MiniPort driver released by VIA reassigns these IRQs. The driver has not been relased by FIC yet but it can be found on the FIC FTP server. Drivers approved by FIC can be downloaded from Drivers and Utilities page.
Loads of other stuff about IRQ issues.

Hope this is helps you m8

Cheers for all your help mate. I did try all of the above with no success, so I gave in today, and bought a cheapy sound card.Hope I have no trouble installing it now!

Cheers again!

Bubblegum

Tried to install the sound card, and guess what - problems! I went into the BIOS and disabled the on board sound. When I installed the sound card, windows tried to locate a suitable driver. Put the cdrom in the drive with the drivers on. It starts to install the drivers, and then a warning box appears with cannot find file ks.ax. I used the search for files and folders to locate the file. Typed in its location, and still windows says, cannot find file. Tried to skip the file, and windows cannot find another file. I type in its location, still cannot find it?

Has windows not installed properly or something?
I am running win 98 se. Shounld I try wiping the drive and reinstalling windows perhaps? Or should I try maybe XP, or a newer edition? Its a fairly old board, max of 1.2gig athlon. I currently have a 800MHz athlon on it?

I was just reading your motherboard manual if it is the AZ11 its saying the onboard sound card is "embeded in a VIA 685A"
So I went to the download page for drivers here

http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/doc/driver_via.aspx

Scroll down the page till you get to the red/yellow tables
See heading "other VIA drivers" below it a heading "Via on board sound drivers"
You get a choice of 2 drivers if you put the VIA vt8233/8233A these are wrong you need the ones for VIA 685A get these here
http://www.fic.com.tw/support/download.aspx?dl=motherboard%2fdriver%2fcd_pro_v5_ 3%2fAUDIO%2fVT686B%2fVt686b.zip&pathfilename=VIA+686A%2fB&title=VIA+686A%2fB+v.2.20a&info=Windows+9x%2fMe%2fNT%2f2000%2fXP%3cbr%3ebundl ed+in+CD-Pro+v5.3

Did you get the patch to resolve the IRQ issues under 98se?

There does seem to be drivers available for xp for that board
Even though it is not listed in there suppoted xp list.
You may also need the newest bios on?

Ok mate, cheers for all help but I still cant get it going. Going to format my hd tonight, and try reinstalling windows. Might try xp as well to see what happens. The board is actually the az31, not the az11. But I tried all the other drivers for that and still the same probs. I still find it strange that the separate sound card will not install either though!

Hello

not really any help to you but i have just been to a friends house whom has the exact same problem as you :) i tried all the the same drivers as yourself and windows has installed them and sees the soundcard (via ac97) but no sound will come out of the speakers (two different sets) so in the morning i am going there with a pci soundcard and hoping to disable the onboard sound through the bios (same options as yours in the bios) i downloaded his manual and it has a jumper setting for also disabling the onboard sound, yours may also have this. also in the manual the soundblaster option in bios should be set to disabled. did you try restoring the factory settings in the bios to see if that helps?

sammy

I just installed XP and it must have had the right drivers on it, because the sound is working fine now. But now I have another problem, cant get it to play games