"wish" comes true

[kwokwai]

Exam period is over :tiredcoff , and now I have time to upgrade my PC.
The very first thing I want to do is to install a "Sound Blaster".

Unfortunately, I don't know too much about thing as follows:
1: How to physically install the sound blaster?
2: How much power will it consume?
3: My PC with XP SP1 has got directX 9c, 1GB RAM, 3GHZ CPU,
and it is one-year old, but I don't know if the motherboard can support it?
4: Does the sound blaster consume more than power than an audio card
does?
5: Which brand of sound blasters is suitable for me?

Please help if you could!

[bear]

1) It's likely a PCI card, and will come with instructions. Chances are it will go one of two ways:
- Install card (it should simply plug into a free PCI slot, aftger removing the small gate on the computer case), reboot, be asked for drivers.
- Install drivers, shut down, install card, boot, tell Windwos where to find drivers.
2) Not much power at all, usually.
3) Motherboard should have no problem supporting it.
4) Sound blaster is an audio card, but since it has no moving parts (that I know of), power usage won't likely be huge. IT will probably be highdr than a "normal" audio card, but not outlandish.
5) That depends on your wants and needs.

You mention power several times. Do you have a poor/small PSU (power supply unit) on this computer or something?

[kwokwai]

1) It's likely a PCI card, and will come with instructions. Chances are it will go one of two ways:
- Install card (it should simply plug into a free PCI slot, aftger removing the small gate on the computer case), reboot, be asked for drivers.
- Install drivers, shut down, install card, boot, tell Windwos where to find drivers.

So, which of the steps mentioned above do you prefer?




You mention power several times. Do you have a poor/small PSU (power supply unit) on this computer or something?
I don't know if the PSU is poor or not, but just have an bad experience that the PC suddenly rebooted when I was playing a music track with iTunes software. That scared me so much! :hammer3:

[bear]

Which path to take when installing depends on the card. Some like the drivers installed first, some after the card is inserted and the system restarted. I'd say, since the card is not integral to the system being able to boot (or display important messages like a graphics card), stick the card in first. The worst that *should* happen is that you have no sound until you correct it.

As for the system rebooting when you used iTunes, that's highly unlikely to have been caused by your power supply, at least alone. More likely it was a software issue.

[kwokwai]

Which path to take when installing depends on the card. Some like the drivers installed first, some after the card is inserted and the system restarted. I'd say, since the card is not integral to the system being able to boot (or display important messages like a graphics card), stick the card in first. The worst that *should* happen is that you have no sound until you correct it.


Yes, as you have just suggested, most users love to install the hardware first and then the software.
It seems this is a international standard!
For myself, I would prefer following this standard.

It is sometimes quite annoying for users to tell the Windows where exactly the driver exist!
Reverse the procedure of installation is simply asking for trouble! :hammer3:

[wera]

First off don't use soundblaster for gaming use x-fi it should me pci yes your motherboard can support it instuctions will be included but really a soundblaster?
I would not use a soundblaster for anything like battlefield 2 quake 4 or anything i have found MOST soundblasters to be a lot better at stuff such as music than a gamer card is i personoley do not care much about music :p.

[kwokwai]

First off don't use soundblaster for gaming use x-fi it should me pci yes your motherboard can support it instuctions will be included but really a soundblaster?
I would not use a soundblaster for anything like battlefield 2 quake 4 or anything i have found MOST soundblasters to be a lot better at stuff such as music than a gamer card is i personoley do not care much about music :p.


I can't afford to have the x-FI version of Creative SB!

pay the lecture fee (US$90) and learn what the sound blaster does!

But I feel that the sound blaster is only suitable for playing 3D games and and music tracks, when you are playing 2D games, the sound quality is worse than you have expected!

[wera]

Wait a moment....we are not talking about the dos sound blaster here are we X_X omg im so stupid -_-.