Sound card causing lock ups

My friend just purchased an M-Audio Delta 44 sound card and he's been experiencing problems with it. He doesn't have net access so he can't ask this question himself.

First he installed the card into an available PCI slot as the instructions said to do. He turned on his machine and everything was going fine, he installed the drivers from the included CD-ROM and all seemed to go well. The audio card was working perfectly. He tested out playback and recording function and everything was fine. He restarted his computer and when it came to boot back up, it would immediately lock up. He restarted again and the same problem persisted. He decided to take his card out and try booting up again but this time it didn't lock up and he was able to get into Windows. He reinstalled the card again and used the same drivers from the disc. The card worked fine again after he installed it but again, after a restart, the machine would lock up.

I went to the manufacturers website and downloaded an updated driver and burned it to a CDR and dropped it at his house. He tried installing the card with the new drivers but still, this problem wouldn't end. He's tried installing the card into each of his PCI slots and nothing helped.

He's pretty lost right now about what could be the problem and so am I. I'm hoping that someone here can help us out.

To note, his computer is a Compaq 500 series with a 700mhz AMD processor, 192mb of SDRAM and Windows ME OS.

 

What's his power supply? If the machine's not getting enough power it will cause it to lock up. Just an idea.

-Lion

 

does everything work ok in safe mode?

 

I'm not too sure what his power supply is. I assume it doesn't output much power though. His computer never came with a detailed spec sheet so I don't know if there is a way to find out.

He's tried going into Safe Mode a couple times. Each time under Device Manager, the card never shows up but there is a question mark that says "PCI Card." It's obviously the card in question since it's the only PCI card he has. He also said that his CD Drives do not work under Safe Mode but I guess that's something else...

 

Also possible that the card is defective, and is freezing the system once the driver is loaded at startup.

 

If you're seeing a yellow question mark next to a device in device manager, GENERALLY it means that the driver is not recognized by the OS. You said that you dl'd a current driver and that the same thing happened, but when you pulled the card the machine worked fine. I'd be willing to bet that he doesn't have enough power to push that card. I was having issues after I installed my new vid card, same thing, locking up. I put a bigger power supply in, and viola!

-Lion

 

I really don't think the card is defective. I think it's more his computer than the card. It works perfectly immediately after installing the card but whenever you restart the computer, you can't boot into Windows since it locks up.

Right now it seems that the power supply is the likely cause. Hopefully it is since it's not that hard of a fix.

 

honestly, these smells like a textbook driver issue. Regardless of if you have the newest driver.

 

I just looked at the manufacturers site to see if they still have older drives available for download and they only have the newest ones. He has tried two different drivers so far (the one from the included CD and the one downloaded from the web) and nothing has worked unfortunately. I did a quick Google search to see if anyone has archived the older drivers and it doesn't seem like it.

 

I just found this link through Google and it seems that many other users have had problems with a similar sound card on the same computer my friend has.

http://dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/hardware/ITEM.CFM?threadid=440&lang=0 Look under User comments/Reviews. It doesn't seem like anyone has found a fix though.

 

Checked for Chipset driver updates?

 

I don't think he has. We'll try that.

 

I looked on the Compaq site for chipset updates, etc. and found absolutely nothing. Where do you think I could find an update for the chipset?

 

what model is it?
maybe run everest to find out what mother board it is. It usually gives a link to the site to get upates from.Everest

 

When I can't find something on Google, I usually go to www.driverguide.com.
You have to register but it is free. Has worked for me several times. They will carry old and new drivers.