Comp Quest. How can I get Windows to see new hardware

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Trying to load a Sound Blaster card. At first the new hardware box came up every time I booted, even when it shouldn't. Now, after disabling the on board sound in BIOS and removing all vestiges of the botched installation as I know how to do, I am trying the new card in different slots with everything killed in the background and Windows doesn't see the new hardware. I am using Win98SE. Does anyone have a lue as to why it doesn't find the ne
w card.

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Thought I had removed everything concerning the new sound card from the computer and then I ran Spybot on the internal setting and found two shared listings for the Sound Blaster with missing dll files. I suspect that might prevent Windows from finding the new hardware. but who knows? I sure don't(-:

[John Miliunas]

A couple things come to mind. First, is that a PCI card or ISA card. Seeing as to how you've tried different slots, I'm assuming it's a PCI card, because most modern boards don't have more than a couple ISA slots, if any at all. Second thing is, you may want to try installing the related software for the card. That action may extrapolate the proper drivers for it and on reboot, the card may then be "found". Unfortunately, 95/98/ME aren't the best at picking up new hardware and that feature was touted as "Plug 'n Pray" more than anything.

[Ken Garlock]

Just stop and think about how much time and effort you have put into trying to make Windows 98SE work to your satisfaction. Wouldn't you have rather spent your time doing something else? IF it were me, I would run, not walk, to my nearest computer store and get Windows XP home edition. Yes, it will cost you about $100 out the door, but it will end all the bovine excrement you have been experiencing.

I had Windows ME on my wifes computer and she was always having problems I installed Windows XP home editon and the problems have literally gone away I highly recommend it for anyone who is currently running a Windows 9x system.

One last thing, make sure you stay up to date on maintenance from M/S. There is nothing to loose and everything to gain. Use the windows update button on your start menu, use it once a week.

The above is my solution to your sound card problem.

[Jim Becker]

Originally posted by Ken Garlock
Just stop and think about how much time and effort you have put into trying to make Windows 98SE work to your satisfaction. Wouldn't you have rather spent your time doing something else? IF it were me, I would run, not walk, to my nearest computer store and get Windows XP home edition.

While I agree that this is a good idea, especially since all support for Win98 from Microsoft ends within about a month, there are other expenses that might be required to make WinXP run on his system if it's an older machine. I only offer this as a caution since system performance is involved. If the computer is more than a couple of years old, it may actually cost less in time and mony to buy a new machine with XP already installed!

XP is really great, however, and I do recommend it.

[John Miliunas]

No truer words ever spoken, BUT: Some folks may have a hard time getting XP to work properly on their machines, especially if they have older hardware. The system requirements for XP are substantially higher than Win 9x (95,98,ME). Although MS will tell you differently, I would personally NOT run XP on anything less than a PII, 350 with *at least* 256MB of RAM. Even though XP will run on much less, it's dog slow and forget about running other software at the same time. (Like, what's the point then?)

I do, however agree that, if Don has the horsepower, that single upgrade could resolve a multitude of issues. Out of about a dozen boxes at work, only one 98-SE remains and that's only for troubleshooting purposes. Same thing at home; I have 6 rigs running on my little Network here and again, only one w/98 and that's only because it doesn't have enough gusto.

[Bart Leetch]

I have to agree with the above about XP to the e extent that sometime between Tuesday & Thursday next week I have 2 computers arriving 2.2 ghtz p4's. The old 166 mhtz hard drive gave out after 5-6 years & the old 200 mhtz unit has about had it too.

Don if you can step up to whole new world of computing with XP. It should keep you going for about 10 years. By then it will be an antique.

[Ken Garlock]

are a consideration. I never gave it a thought . My wife's machine is modest by today's standards, a mere 433Mhz CPU and 256Meg of memory which is able to run XP OK. Memory is dirt cheap, you can get 256M of good memory for about $60. Good memory is spelled Crucial, http://www.crucial.com/ , a division of Micron Semiconductor, and it is American made memory.

I recommend Crucial memory because it is a quality product, and Micron bought the memory business from TI several years ago. I am retired from TI. Even before the TI deal I was buying Micron memory. Would you believe I spent over $600 for my first stick of 16M memory way back when a Pentium 90Mhz was state of the art.

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Miliunas
[B]A couple things come to mind. First, is that a PCI card or ISA card.

John, thanks to you and to the others who have responded, The unit is PCI and I have thought about ugrading the OS. I am worried that some of the old applications I have and like may not work with XP. Seems to me that is what I have heard. My computer is a rebuild with an updated motherboard having an 800 horse power AMD Duron processor and 256 GB of memory. Both the hard drives are a couple years old, the CD is about three years old and the CD Writer is a little younger. What do you think; would I
be in for a lot of compatibility problems if I upgraded.

[John Miliunas]

Do it! Yes, you do have the horsepower necessary to run quite nicely. If you have the available slot(s), I'd still consider bumping up to 512 MB of RAM, but 256 should work quite nicely. The older hard drives will be a bit of a bottleneck, compared to today's drives, but I question the quality/longevity of present day hard drives. In a quest for high speed, large capacity and still be inexpensive, many of them are what one could really term as "cheap". Read that as: poor quality.

As far as applications go, I've found very few which will not play nice with XP. Of some special note, one of them is older versions of Norton Anti-Virus. Versions prior to Norton AV 2002 will NOT work with XP. Also, some older versions of Easy CD Creator are doomed, as well. Those are really the only two which come readily to mind. On the flip side, a guy needs current anti-virus anyway. CD Creator may have updates available to make it compatible, BUT, if it doesn't, worry not. Windows XP also happens to have a built-in utility for burning CD's both, data and music. Fact is, the utility comes from Roxio, the same people putting out Easy CD Creator.

In general, I have found hardware which is a couple to three years old, is not a problem for XP. Actually, it's kind of rare that I even have to go out and get special driver downloads for internal peripherals and hardware. A couple items you may want to check out though, will be external add-ins, such as scanners and printers. I know some older scanners have zero support for XP. Printers are typically less problematic.

Good luck and let us know which way you decide to go. Feel free to drop me a line personally, if you need a bit more guidance or help.

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Thanks again, John. My printer is new. My scanner is ancient, but then I haven't used it in a long time. Probably time to upgrade that and get a better photo manipulator. I'll upgrade to XP before I try another install.

[John Miliunas]

Good for you, Don. I ended up having to do the same when I went to XP. I did a fair amount of research and, being somewhat financially challenged, I chose the Visioneer OneTouch, 8920 scanner. It's got a small footprint, quiet and pretty darn fast. Quality of reproduction from pics is good. It also has a negative/slide copying ability and that's six of one, half a dozen of the other. I tried a few negs through it and, if the neg was well exposed in the first place, it worked surprisingly well. A more poorly exposed neg didn't come out worth a hoot. That's OK, because the main reason I picked it was due to fairly good reviews, nice overall reproduction and it was at a great price point. (Read that as: Something I could affortd.) Have phun with your new operating system!