Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5

Subject: ... don't get on
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 08:26 AM

I've been using GoldWave 4 for quite a while for cleaning up tapes & 78s, and other stuff, so when v5 came out, I downloaded it (and I do have a licence!) I have a Creative Audigy sound card which isn't compatible with Windows XP or 2000, so I have 98 (second ed). I've tried GW5 under W2000 on my pc at work, and it works with no problems, but whenever I run it at home it crashes. It will begin a process, but just as it's about to finish, the screen goes blank and the machine reboots. (I still have my copy of GW4, so I'm not entirely bereft.) Tech suport at GW say they've never encountered the problem.

What else..? Athlon processor (PIII or PIV equivalent, forget which), 256 MB of RAM, quite a few GB left on my hard disk. There are several TSRs (do they still call them that?) and background jobs, but I still get the same thing when I remove them all; also I've tried turning off "hardware acceleration" to no avail. Can't think of anything else to try.

Any ideas?

Steve

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 10:54 AM

Since I don't know much about GW or Creative Audigy, the "outside the box" thought is that you may not have kept your AV scans current during your recent OS troubles(?).

There are a number of virus forms, mostly Trojans, that will force reboots at various (and always inconvenient) times. The search string "force reboot" at Symantec security returns a couple of thousand hits.

Your problem is more likely related to "real" software setup, but checking for clean virus condition on the problem machine is fairly simple, and will eliminate at least one thing to worry over.

The second thing to look at is whether you have "system appropriate" drivers on the Win98SE machine. Some download sites check, or ask for, the OS in use, and will download only the drivers for the system on the receiving machine. This can save a lot of download time, but makes the downloaded "version" somewhat OS-specific. If you downloaded GW5 to the Win2K (or some other) machine, it may not have sent you all the "best" Win98SE drivers, even though it looks like you got a good install when you moved it to the other machine. It's pretty easy for tech support people to "forget" that downloaded updates may be OS specific - after all, they've got the full CD installation on their machines.

Both of these things are sort of "shot in the dark" possibilities, but neither should be too hard to eliminate - you may already have the answers on them.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 10:59 AM

Thanks for the advice, John. My AV is a bit out of date, although I did run a scan after the first crash. I'll have to check up on the drivers; I did the download at work (we have a much faster connection there) so it could be that.

Steve

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Willie-O
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 11:26 AM

Steve, how sure are you that your Audigy isn't XP/2000 compatible?

I have an Audigy Platinum, (the first generation), running on XP, it works fine. Had to download the drivers for XP, (from Creative) like it says on the bottom of the Audigy box... no problem, really. Check the fine print on your box if you still have it.

In fact I'm just getting around to learning to multi-track on it. Cubasis VST was the bundled software, I spent half a day and gave up on it--switched to N-Track which works OK. (Not great documentation, but far better than the useless pile-o-screenshots labelled with engineering twaddle which Cubasis passes off as a helpfile.)   

Bill

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 12:25 PM

Bill, I bought the whole system complete about a couple of years back, from the company's local shop (Evesham Micros, that is). They told me it wasn't compatible, and I assumed they knew what they were talking about, since they built the machines. My son the computer whizz-kid had kitted out his employer's offices with EM kit, and trusted them enough to buy his own from there (and my old EM machine when I bought the new one.) It may be different now, I don't know. I'll have to check which version of the card I have, and look at Creative's driver pages.

Steve

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Willie-O
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 03:46 PM

Creative Lab Driver Downloads

Audigy drivers are listed under Soundblaster, select the 24-bit ADVANCED HD option.

The site confirms that all Audigy cards run on XP. Could be that the XP drivers weren't available when you got the card.

Can't guarantee that your PC will benefit from upgrading to XP, but I don't know why it shouldn't work, if it's only 2 years old as you describe. Whether it's a good idea for you depends a lot on how attached you are to your other applications, and possibly hardware peripherals which may not be XP compatible.   

Bill

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 02 Dec 03 - 04:15 AM

I checked out the user guide last night, and it mentions drivers for W98 and W2000 but not XP. And GoldWave's website does say it's not supported for W98. Looks like either I spend a lot of money or just do without GW 5!

Steve

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: Willie-O
Date: 02 Dec 03 - 10:18 AM

Go to the Creative website Steve. Your user guide came out before XP drivers were available. (Remember XP itself only came out two years ago). 2000 and XP are basically the same platform, across the great divide from the earlier Win 95/98/ME.   

Oh and one other thing--looking back at your original post mentioning that your machine spontaneously reboots when you're trying to run stuff. Have you updated your antivirus software this week? Last time I had a problem like that it was a worm. I sort of thought I had updated my virus definitions, then found I hadn't. Problem solved, after a bit of housecleaning.

Especially if as you imply, GoldWave 5 is supposed to run on 98SE and the problem is unfamiliar to their tech support staff.   

If I were you, though, I'd try Pro Tools Free


System requirements

It only runs on a decently equipped 98/ME platform PC, like yours, and since Pro Tools is the industry standard professional studio software, it would be a good one to get familiar with.

Subject: RE: Tech: Audigy, Windows 98SE & GoldWave 5
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Dec 03 - 03:54 PM

GoldWave's website does say it's not supported for W98 ...?

GoldWave may actually mean "won't run on Win98," but "not supported" usually just means they won't talk to you about it.

"Win98 is not supported by Microsoft" since a little more than two years ago, but it's still a reasonable choice for some situations.

Since other software makers can no longer pass Win98 questions off and get tech support from Microsoft, they may just be reluctant to try to answer questions about using their software on Win98 - even if suitable components and installations exist.

The GoldWave response in your first post: Tech suport at GW say they've never encountered the problem may reflect the "non-support" situation. They won't know much about what GW5 does on Win98 if they don't talk to people about Win98.

I read your first post as "how do I make GW5 run on Win98," but your comment about your Audigy not being compatible with Win2K or WinXP suggests that you might still be open to migrating to XP. Willie-O, and your use on Win2K at work, both seem to be saying that your Audigy and GW5 would both run if you went to XP; but I'm not sure that you've worked up a warm feeling about doing so.

You've found some roadblocks to an easy installation of GW5 on Win98; but I have'nt seen anything here that I'd take as "it can't be done." The builder doesn't seem inclined to help, so if you want to continue with trying to get GW5 up on Win98 you'll probably have to resort to "User Group" kinds of resources - GW and/or Win98 groups. You may end up going back to the GW people to get the appropriate components; but you may have to find out what to look for by doing some brain-picking elsewhere.

Your original "reboot" problem does suggest one of the virus plagues, or a "resource" problem. If you haven't done so, you do need to hook up with one of the AV sites and get a good, current, scan. If it's a resource problem, you might be able to get some useful information by turning on the "Resource Meter" and/or "System Monitor" that you can find in your Win98 Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools area, to see if something unexpected happens when you try to run GW; but of course you have to watch the meters to find out anything - and then figure out whether it means something.

If you're seriously interested in facing up to WinXP, I'd say that your 256MB RAM is adequate (but I'd recommend more, eventually). It should be enough to run fairly well on a standalone machine. Having "quite a lot of hard drive space" means rather different things for Win98 and for Win2K/XP. A minimum install of either 2K or XP, with basic Office and a few decent applications needs at least 20GB on the (bootable) hard drive for acceptable performance (IMO). You should check to be sure whether you have a PIII or PIV compatible processor, and verify that meets the published requirements for XP (There's a minimum speed spec too).

I run Win2K on a machine with 256MB RAM and a 20GB C:\ drive. Performance is in the "generally ok" category, but isn't really up to what it should be. I would NOT recommend Win2K for most users - WinXP is the more suitable one, unless your local sysadmin tells you you need 2K. (If you don't have a local sysadmin - use XP.)

I run WinXP on a machine with 1024MB RAM and a 120GB C:\ drive. I could get by with a little less, maybe; but I certainly wouldn't buy a new machine with anything smaller. I have considered, seriously, converting the Win2K machine to XP, and wouldn't worry too much about it running well with the present resources, although I'd probably kick the RAM at least to 512MB "on principle."

Each of these two machines has an external USB 120GB hard drive attached, because both machines were getting crowded for disk space. (It did take about 2 years use on the Win2K machine to reach the "constipated hard drive" condition.) From the XP, I can access both C:\ drives and both external hard drives via my workgroup LAN. The Win2K machine does not have "sufficient resources" to access the external drive attached to the XP machine. This isn't something that would be significant to most users, but does indicate that the 20GB boot drive and 256MB RAM are pretty well "used up" by Win2K, and the situation would be similar with XP on the same machine.

I do have one surviving Win98 machine, that screams along (well, whines politely) with 256MB RAM and four 2GB partitions, but that machine would not survive a newer OS. It's a Pentium from before they had numbers, and a sand-dial in place of a clock. (And does anybody want to buy a laptop that couldn't upgrade from Win95 to Win98?)

John