Gav

The manufacturer of the board makes next to no difference (unless they've added some 'extras', eg. BE6). The chipset is important, I'm using a standard Intel BX based board, and have had no problems or issues with it at all. Since my SB Live works perfectly under the Win9x kernel I see no reason why people keep believing it's a hardware problem (SMP issues aside). My boards linked up to a pretty decent hi-fi system too, so I might be hearing something you guys don't on your ****e PC-World desktop speakers. It's down to one of two things I reckon, either a PCI latency problem (powerstrip FAQ has info about this) where Win2K is changing the latency of the video and/or audio boards. Or it's a driver issue, specifically in the buffer I think, might be a problem with DMA transfers. Read my previous post on how to see if you've got the same problem. Going into the sound control panel to force a 'beep' works too, remember to try it with Winamp *paused* after a few seconds. Sorry if I'm talking complete bollocks, I wouldn't be suprised if the different results are because of the many 'models' of SB Live!. Check out the .inf files, there's quite a few.

I've got a pretty damned standard mobo, an AOpen AX6BC with an Intel P3-550, not overclocked, and 100% stable. I can definately say it's not a VIA/SIS/ALi only problem. My SB Live! works perfectly under Win9x but crackles under 2000. Nothing too major, only notice it about once every couple of hours. I'd list my whole spec but the problem happens with just my ATI graphics card the SB Live in it as well. The best giveaway of the problem is to use Winamp for a few minutes, pause it, then make explorer 'beep' at you somehow. It sounds as if the buffer has been corrupted. And Ronin, you are indeed of no help at all, go brag in another forum.

I've got an Advansys PCI SCSI card, can't find the model number right now, but I remember it cost about $30 from buy.com. I use it under W2K to run a Yamaha CD Burner, and a Pioneer DVDROM drive. Works perfectly.

Anyone get the Z11/51 to work?? I tried this NT4 driver with my Z11, and it actually started printing..! Shame is though it's all over the place, it 'skews' halfway down the page, and using colour locks up the printer... Well, it's pretty unusable really, even in B&W... Must be to do with the dual cartridge thing, cos the Z11 only has one at a time. Anyway, nice to see that the 'lexmark printing system' actually works and talks to the printer under W2K... so Lexmark have no excuses on the driver front....