boz
08-05-2003, 12:47 AM
Hi there, I'm new here and hope someone can help me. This is going to be long, but I wanted to give ALL the relevant info. that may help someone troubleshoot my problem.
Here goes:
I've got a soundcard (or motherboard) problem and I'm hoping you perhaps have an idea as to what could be wrong. Here's the problem: When playing store-bought music CDs, I seem to be only getting left channel sound, however, this sound is playing in both the left and right speakers, whether my 2.1 speakers (sub & 2 satellites) hooked to the soundcard's audio out jack, or headphones hooked to this same jack, or headphones hooked directly to the headset jacks on either of my two (2) CD-ROMs (one a standard cheapie, and the other an AOpen 'burner').
When my headphones are hooked directly into the Ensoniq soundcard audio out jack, when I move the balance slider on the windows volume control to the left, the result seems to be full left channel sound in both left/right speakers. Moving it to the mid-point gives the left channel sound in both left/right headset speakers also, but just a tad slightly less robust than when the slider is to the left. Moving the slider to the right gives no sound in either left or right headset speakers. Doing this same thing with my 2.1 speakers (sub & two satellites) hooked to the very same audio out jack, the only difference is that moving the slider to the left gives full left channel sound in the left satellite with nothing at all in the right satellite; when I move the slider to full right, I get full left channel sound in the right satellite. With the slider in the middle, there's left channel sound in both speakers. It's not stereo sound, it's sound in both satellites, but not true mono sound, either, since it's really just the left channel playing on both sides...in essence, I'm only hearing half of the music.
And like I said, the sound doesn't even play in full stereo from either of the CD-ROMs (I seem to be getting the left channel played in both channels also)! I've verified this by playing CDs on my home stereo CD unit.
Please note, this same phenomenon occurs when playing an MP3 or wavfile on my hard drive.
This computer is a generic clone and has worked well for 5 yrs. now. I've never had such a problem with the sound, it's always been fine until about 2 wks. ago when one night this suddenly occurred. I was playing MP3s/wavfiles from my hard drive with no problem through my 2.1 speakers. Awhile later I went back to relisten to some songs, and this problem was what I encountered. It wasn't something I did either, it just happened unexpectedly out of the blue (which sorta makes me think perhaps something blew out, maybe on the soundcard, maybe on the motherboard). I also checked all my wiring and swapped out the wires from my CD-ROMs to the soundcard, without any better results. I also tried 2-3 sets of headphones, all with the same problem. So wiring is apparently not an issue.
Anyway, figuring it was likely a soundcard circuit board problem, I bought a new soundcard: a Philips Rhythmic Edge, a good card. Upon installing that (after having removed the Ensoniq card and its drivers), the same exact problem (of course using the Philips drivers for this card).
What's disturbing is that BOTH of my CD-ROMs display this same problem when my headphones are hooked directly to the jack on their front panels (without going thru the soundcard)! This really shouldn't be the case; from everything I've read these should play the music in stereo, even if I had a bad soundcard, since these work independently. And there's no way that both my CD-ROM units suddenly went bad at the same time!
Therefore, I'm thinking both the old and new soundcards are probably OK, as are both CD-ROMs. So, it's likely an issue with either soundcard drivers (doubt it since my Ensoniq drivers that came with my orig. soundcard worked with no problems before) or the Windows operating system.
So, now I'm back to just having my original Ensoniq card installed, and all the drivers are installed for it and I have no yellow exclamation points anywhere in System Devices; everything appears to be working fine according to device manager with no conflicts at all. Also, I've tried the soundcard in PCI slots 1, 2 & 3 and yet all result in this same problem.
Could it be that there's perhaps some sort of odd problem on my motherboard, maybe in the PCI bus or something that would cause this?
I've removed the system devices in Device Mgr. and rebooted and the system 'refinds' all that PCI bus stuff and whatnot (about a dozen or more items I'd imagine), but that didn't solve the problem either.
I've got a new motherboard ordered (which will arrive in the next day or two). It's a brand new AOpen board that I got for 18.99 (!) which has the same exact Intel 440LX chipset as my orig. PC Chips/Amptron board. I got it cheap because obviously these Pentium II boards aren't in high demand anymore...LOL. The same chipset should not mess with my Windows operating system much, I wouldn't think, when I swap this out. I plan to do this to see if the problem goes away, but I'd prefer not to have to do this.
I'm running Windows95 (400.950 B) which is the OEM version with USB support (probably just before Windows98 came out). When the problem developed, I wasn't getting any other sort of Windows errors at all (blue screen of death, general protection faults, etc.), but thinking that maybe something in Windows went awry, I made sure to also do a fresh reformat of the hard drive; I wiped it clean, then reinstalled Windows95B from my original full CD (yes, these used to come with systems!).
That didn't solve the problem either :-( .
So, the new soundcard didn't solve the problem. Reinstalling Windows didn't do it either.
What's your advice on this problem? Do you think maybe there's a problem with the motherboard after all? Have I done all the 'detective work' (short of swapping out the MB) to try to solve this problem?
I look forward to your responses.
Here goes:
I've got a soundcard (or motherboard) problem and I'm hoping you perhaps have an idea as to what could be wrong. Here's the problem: When playing store-bought music CDs, I seem to be only getting left channel sound, however, this sound is playing in both the left and right speakers, whether my 2.1 speakers (sub & 2 satellites) hooked to the soundcard's audio out jack, or headphones hooked to this same jack, or headphones hooked directly to the headset jacks on either of my two (2) CD-ROMs (one a standard cheapie, and the other an AOpen 'burner').
When my headphones are hooked directly into the Ensoniq soundcard audio out jack, when I move the balance slider on the windows volume control to the left, the result seems to be full left channel sound in both left/right speakers. Moving it to the mid-point gives the left channel sound in both left/right headset speakers also, but just a tad slightly less robust than when the slider is to the left. Moving the slider to the right gives no sound in either left or right headset speakers. Doing this same thing with my 2.1 speakers (sub & two satellites) hooked to the very same audio out jack, the only difference is that moving the slider to the left gives full left channel sound in the left satellite with nothing at all in the right satellite; when I move the slider to full right, I get full left channel sound in the right satellite. With the slider in the middle, there's left channel sound in both speakers. It's not stereo sound, it's sound in both satellites, but not true mono sound, either, since it's really just the left channel playing on both sides...in essence, I'm only hearing half of the music.
And like I said, the sound doesn't even play in full stereo from either of the CD-ROMs (I seem to be getting the left channel played in both channels also)! I've verified this by playing CDs on my home stereo CD unit.
Please note, this same phenomenon occurs when playing an MP3 or wavfile on my hard drive.
This computer is a generic clone and has worked well for 5 yrs. now. I've never had such a problem with the sound, it's always been fine until about 2 wks. ago when one night this suddenly occurred. I was playing MP3s/wavfiles from my hard drive with no problem through my 2.1 speakers. Awhile later I went back to relisten to some songs, and this problem was what I encountered. It wasn't something I did either, it just happened unexpectedly out of the blue (which sorta makes me think perhaps something blew out, maybe on the soundcard, maybe on the motherboard). I also checked all my wiring and swapped out the wires from my CD-ROMs to the soundcard, without any better results. I also tried 2-3 sets of headphones, all with the same problem. So wiring is apparently not an issue.
Anyway, figuring it was likely a soundcard circuit board problem, I bought a new soundcard: a Philips Rhythmic Edge, a good card. Upon installing that (after having removed the Ensoniq card and its drivers), the same exact problem (of course using the Philips drivers for this card).
What's disturbing is that BOTH of my CD-ROMs display this same problem when my headphones are hooked directly to the jack on their front panels (without going thru the soundcard)! This really shouldn't be the case; from everything I've read these should play the music in stereo, even if I had a bad soundcard, since these work independently. And there's no way that both my CD-ROM units suddenly went bad at the same time!
Therefore, I'm thinking both the old and new soundcards are probably OK, as are both CD-ROMs. So, it's likely an issue with either soundcard drivers (doubt it since my Ensoniq drivers that came with my orig. soundcard worked with no problems before) or the Windows operating system.
So, now I'm back to just having my original Ensoniq card installed, and all the drivers are installed for it and I have no yellow exclamation points anywhere in System Devices; everything appears to be working fine according to device manager with no conflicts at all. Also, I've tried the soundcard in PCI slots 1, 2 & 3 and yet all result in this same problem.
Could it be that there's perhaps some sort of odd problem on my motherboard, maybe in the PCI bus or something that would cause this?
I've removed the system devices in Device Mgr. and rebooted and the system 'refinds' all that PCI bus stuff and whatnot (about a dozen or more items I'd imagine), but that didn't solve the problem either.
I've got a new motherboard ordered (which will arrive in the next day or two). It's a brand new AOpen board that I got for 18.99 (!) which has the same exact Intel 440LX chipset as my orig. PC Chips/Amptron board. I got it cheap because obviously these Pentium II boards aren't in high demand anymore...LOL. The same chipset should not mess with my Windows operating system much, I wouldn't think, when I swap this out. I plan to do this to see if the problem goes away, but I'd prefer not to have to do this.
I'm running Windows95 (400.950 B) which is the OEM version with USB support (probably just before Windows98 came out). When the problem developed, I wasn't getting any other sort of Windows errors at all (blue screen of death, general protection faults, etc.), but thinking that maybe something in Windows went awry, I made sure to also do a fresh reformat of the hard drive; I wiped it clean, then reinstalled Windows95B from my original full CD (yes, these used to come with systems!).
That didn't solve the problem either :-( .
So, the new soundcard didn't solve the problem. Reinstalling Windows didn't do it either.
What's your advice on this problem? Do you think maybe there's a problem with the motherboard after all? Have I done all the 'detective work' (short of swapping out the MB) to try to solve this problem?
I look forward to your responses.