Losing audio at times?

[WoodPeckr]

My old PII Gateway PC which has performed rock solid over the past 10 years has been losing sound once in awhile lately. Been getting audio back by shutting everything down unplugging the speakers for ~1 minute, then replugging and restarting the PC.
Anybody have any idea what the problem may be?

 

[thirdtime]

You have to determine if it's the PC or the speakers.
Try another pair of speakers or headphones and see if it still happens.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I suspect it's in the PC.
I discovered it takes about 75 seconds to boot up when the audio is working normal but when audio is not working it always takes about 20 more seconds to boot up! Noted this from just watching what it had been doing.
Then when I shut eveything down and unplug, then replug the speakers for that 1 minute, it reboots back normally again in 75 seconds with audio working normal again......

 

[thirdtime]

Is the audio a chip on the motherboard or a PCI card?
(It may even be an ISA card if the system is 10 years old.)
If it's a card, try removing and reseating it. Remove and reinstall the audio drivers.

 

[WoodPeckr]

It's a sound card.
Know that because when it was new 10 yrs ago it arrived DOA without sound. Gateway sent a techie who replaced the sound card which worked fine ever since.
Still have all the system CDs with drivers etc.
Will I still be able to find audio drivers easily if they're not on any of those CDs?

 

[thirdtime]

What operating system are you using? I'm guessing Windows 95 if it's 10 years old?
If you pull the card and get a make\model number or chip info from it, you should be able to find drivers online for it.
Again I suggest just re-seating the card first and trying the system. That can solve a lot of audio card and\or video card issues on an older system.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Using XP Pro now and Ubuntu on a dual boot setup. Started with 95 then upgraded to 98 then last year put in XP Pro and linux. After tweaking it a bit it runs pretty good. When I find the time I'll try re-seating the audio card. It's not a big problem. Happens maybe once a week.
Thanks for the help.

 

[basketcase]

I'm just impressed that a PII is capable of surfing the web (with 6000 posts at that!)

 

[WoodPeckr]

I'm just impressed that a PII is capable of surfing the web (with 6000 posts at that!)

LOL!
My other PC is a HP Q6600 Quad core.
I have a cable modem and when both are surfing together on the web, the quad is only a bit quicker than the PII. Found this the most surprising!
Of course offline the quad blows the PII away, as expected.

 

[thirdtime]

I'm just impressed that a PII is capable of surfing the web (with 6000 posts at that!)

My 'downloads only' computer (eMule) was a PII 350 for years until I finally replaced it last fall.

 

[WoodPeckr]

My 'downloads only' computer (eMule) was a PII 350 for years until I finally replaced it last fall.

LOL....my 'downloads only' computer (newsgroups) is a PII 400, so it probably has some life left in it...
When running Ubuntu the PII is just as fast as the Quad running Vista.
I D/L a full 320 bitrate album in 1 minute with either of them.