Problems/Solutions - Audigy Soundcard/Dell Dimension 8200

The place for Cakewalk beginners to discuss everything Cakewalk.
ComposerTed
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2004 5:16 am
Location: Michigan, USA

Post by ComposerTed » Wed Feb 11, 2004 5:27 pm

I recently went thru a battle to get an Audigy 2 Platinum Pro to work in my Dell Dimension 8200. I write my story in the hopes that is will save others time and frustration. Despite being several steps above the Sound Blaster Live I had been using, the Audigy had two big problems when recording midi to audio in Cakewalk (and occasionally when just listening to music in Media Player, etc.): (1) It seemed to produce a lot of clicks/distortions/dropouts/etc. and (2) It would very frequently freeze on a single tone and totally lock the computer up to the point where cutting the power was the only way to turn off the computer and break out of it.

I did a lot of research in this forum, the Dell forum, and on the Cakewalk and Creative Labs/Soundblaster sites. Disabling unneeded Windows XP services and hardware devices, temporarily turning off antivirus (safe to do if I disabled my cable modem I figured), etc. helped quite a bit with the clicks/distortions, but I was still getting the total freeze ups. I also tried moving cards among the slot to get the Audigy on its own IRQ, which seemed to help a bit too. I was never able to eliminate the total freezeups though, and finally determined thru Dell Forum research that it was most likely a bios problem, specific to the 8200 (and I think maybe a few other Dell models) with the Audigy soundcards (lucky me for having that combo) . Dell has a flash bios update on their site which a number of people have reportedly used to successfully solve this problem. I did not want to go there, though, as there is a (small?) risk it might totally trash my bios (which is soldered to the motherboard - augh!). Dell says if that happens, it is NOT covered by their warantee.

A couple of people also reported success after replacing the NIC card that comes with the 8200 with a different one by 3Com. I tried just taking mine out temporarily figuring I would buy the 3Com card if that worked for me, but it did not. I also read of at least one person who had good results from switching to Windows ME, but I really did not want to go there either.

Feeling I had no really good alternatives to get the Audigy to work for me, I returned it and ordered an M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which from everything I read should work much better for me.

PS - I just realized I should probably have posted this in the hardware section - Sorry - Maybe an administrator will move it.


Post Reply