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Windows ME VIA AC'97 not working


bz07

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I have an old Everex Stepnote LM7WZ laptop with an Unichrome S3  VN800 graphics card with a VT8273R plus south bridge. As you may know Everex is out of business so contacting their support is not possible and this Laptop only officially supports Windows XP.  I am looking to use this laptop to run 98SE/Me for some old games and just playing around. I know this isnt ideal for gaming as I dont want to spend the money to get a graphics card for my real 98 PC.  I managed to get ME installed onto the laptop and by using the XP drivers and googling I managed to get the graphics, USB, and Ethernet working. The Sound, modem, and WIFI do not work in which i don't need the modem or WIFI.  However I can not get the Via AC'97 sound to work! I tried both the Windows XP drivers and ones designed for Windows 98/ME and still no luck. I keep ending up with an error about the device being disabled in bios. However, the bios is extremely limited and their is no option for any thing related to sound, modem, COM ports. However, the sound works fine under Linux, Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8 as I tried them all. I am thinking there might be an issue with the IRQ steering as the error mentions it and I had to make it only enabled for ACPI in order for the Display, Ethernet, and USB to work. However, i have tried leaving it back to the defaults and all different combinations but still no luck. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions? I know Im better off giving up or buying a USB soundcard but it seems a shame that something as simple as sound will cause problems. 

 

 

biospage1.jpgbiosexit.jpgbios2.png3.jpgsound.jpgsoundmamnager.jpgmodem-sound.jpgmodem.jpgmotherresource.jpgmotherresourceexpand.jpgpcibus.jpgpciirq.jpgSound-playback.jpg

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@bz07, Did you try clicking on the resources tab of the motherboard resources that has the resources conflict and find out what it is conflicting with, then remove the device that is conflicting. Then reboot.

Would it not be VT8237R southbridge? If it is then it has an external sound chip something like CMI9761A. I found this chip difficult to get installed, I know that 5.10.00.3570 2001 AC97 driver works on my desktop machine. Later drivers may have trouble? www.driversguru.com/go.php?id=643592 make sure the newer files are no longer in use. I am fairly sure it does not like the driver you have installed nor the C-Media one? The BIOS setting of disabled should come good after install.


 

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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So far I can see you didn't  install the VIA 4in1 chipset driver. You have "PCI standard host cpu bridges" in your device manager. This indicates there are only standard MS drivers. The Via device name is "VIA standard host bridge".  I don't believe that there is a problem with ACPI. I've a VIA P4M800 (VIAVT8237R).  It isn't a laptop, but there aren't any problems. 



 

Edited by schwups
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3 hours ago, schwups said:

So far I can see you didn't  install the VIA 4in1 chipset driver. You have "PCI standard host cpu bridges" in your device manager. This indicates there are only standard MS drivers. The Via device name is "VIA standard host bridge".  I don't believe that there is a problem with ACPI. I've a VIA P4M800 (VIAVT8237R).  It isn't a laptop, but there aren't any problems. 

 

In this installation I seemed to have forgotten to install the 4 in 1 chipset. (Iv been through alot of installations). Typically Iv found that when i install the 4 in 1 drivers it installs some type of IDE controller driver than causes the system to hang on boot until i remove the drivers via safe mode. It very well could be an error from that. 


 

 

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Can you specify the full Hardware ID of the audio card? (the PCI/VEN/DEV/SUBSYS string)

You can see it by running "hwinfo /ui" in the Run dialog box from Start menu and looking for devices with problems.

Edited by MrMateczko
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1 hour ago, schwups said:

Did you install the chipset driver first, before you install others?
 

To be honest I could not tell you Iv installed and tried so many things over so many installations.  Im assuming I should install the chip set drivers before anything else, correct?

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2 hours ago, MrMateczko said:

Can you specify the full Hardware ID of the audio card? (the PCI/VEN/DEV/SUBSYS string)

You can see it by running "hwinfo /ui" in the Run dialog box from Start menu and looking for devices with problems.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\enum\PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3059&SUBSYS_43431509&REV_60\BUS_00&DEV_11&FUNC_05
 

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1 hour ago, bz07 said:

To be honest I could not tell you Iv installed and tried so many things over so many installations.  Im assuming I should install the chip set drivers before anything else, correct?

Yes, install the Chipset drivers directly after OS. That's the normal procedure.
 

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20 hours ago, schwups said:

Yes, install the Chipset drivers directly after OS. That's the normal procedure.
 

Sorry, wow just relized it's my first me ever installing a Chipset driver. And I installed it but still no luck with the audio. Same error.

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@MrMateczko, @bz07, a406 installs but the latest AC97 driver that I could get working was  a399 a404. On a similar VIA800 machine the later AC97 drivers installed through windows update on Vista stopped one channel from working after 2 months, so I went back to the driver I mentioned in my above post and all was good again. a406 might be a bit tricky to remove?
 

Edited by Goodmaneuver
a404 works
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On 2/13/2019 at 6:46 PM, MrMateczko said:

You can try installing the Realtek drivers (don't be fooled by the name, it supports VIA too)


https://filehippo.com/download_realtek_ac97/

I tried at @Goodmaneuver's suggestion with the a399 version and still no luck. I later tried the A4.06 and still no luck. Both sets of drivers install but end up with the same error of being disabled in bios

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