Windows Xp Soundboard Scratch

[Manric Hock]

Solet me explain... I initially wanted to run Win98 SE, but when it came to sound... every time i booted up into windows, it would lock up. I tried several different drivers, IRQ settings in BIOS, but no luck. Safe Mode actually worked fine however, because there were no sound drivers loaded I'm guessing?

When i first install windows 95, everything works fine.. hell it even has sound! but in device manager, there's no mention of Yamaha OPL3 at all. Just "generic sound synth, MPU-401, and Windows Sound system". So at this point, the sound works fine with the stock windows drivers, however, there's exclamation marks next to almost everything under sound, and no mention of Yamaha OPL3.

So I start installing the latest Yamaha Win95 drivers from Toshiba's website, and things do work AT FIRST. After installing the drivers, I now have the proper devices installed it seems, listed as "SB Pro", "Windows Sound System", and "Yamaha OPL3-SAx Sound System"... and ALL sounds are working great. CD-Audio plays, Windows wave sounds, it's all PERFECT...

BUT....when you click the details in the device manager, Almost every sound device has SEVERAL resource conflicts between them. Once I start playing with IRQ's, DMA access, and I/O addresses, things start going to shit. I'm now at the point where sound doesn't work at all, so I'm reloading Win95 OSR2 once again from scratch. ?

ok update... just reloaded Win95 from SCRATCH, and this time its even worse. Now the only device that's listed is "Yamaha OPL3" under "other" tab. There was NO mention of Sound Blaster Pro, Windows Sound System, Gameport or MPU-401... Nadda.

Try to run SETYMF before Windows loads :

It sets up YMF71x chips completely and hopefully windows will then play along too, assuming the laptop isn't using YMF701, which is a different beast that my util is very unlikely to support.

The issue was with IRQ conflicts after all, between the Sound board and the onboard COM Ports (including Serial, LPT Printer, and COM ports). Even though they were all disabled in BIOS, Windows was still assigning them IRQ's. Once I disabled all 4 Port entries in device manager, the little sound icon popped right up in the system tray. At 5AM when I was just about ready to give up, I clicked on properties of "COMPUTER" at the VERY TOP of device manager. This allows you to organize your installed devices by assigned IRQ's, and sure enough there were multiple devices sharing the same IRQ's between the Sound card and onboard Ports. So make sure you disable these 4 Port entries before installing the Yamaha Drivers.

I've included screenshots of all the correct settings you'll need for the Toshiba Satellite 440CDT Laptop. From proper BIOS settings, to how everything should look in the device manager once all said and done. Before Installing Windows, make sure the BIOS is set correctly first.

For Windows 95... in order to have CD-ROM & Sound support in DOS, I also had to add the following lines to autoexec.bat and config.sys (both located in root of C:). Also make sure to place the Toshiba CD-ROM driver in the root of C: as well, "toscdrom.sys" (10x version).

Best sound driver is the official Toshiba Win9x Yamaha installer v4.06.2343 (this is the latest driver ever made for this particular sound chip). For best video driver, use the official Toshiba driver appropriate to that version of Windows. Both can be found at Toshiba's website.

One more thing to note is that the BIOS on this particular laptop only supports bootable partitions upto 7.8GB.. I was having many false drive error's at first when I was trying to install Windows 95/98, because I had the entire 40GB drive set as the bootable partition.

Soundproofing is designed to prevent sound from entering or leaving a space by blocking sound transmission with dense, heavy materials, making it ideal for environments where sound leakage is a concern. On the other hand, sound absorption aims to improve the acoustic quality within a space by reducing echo and reverberation, using light, porous materials to trap and convert sound waves. While soundproofing focuses on isolation, sound absorption enhances the internal acoustic environment, each serving different purposes in noise control.

While soundproofing products use dense, heavy materials, sound absorption treatments are typically made of soft, porous materials, such as foam or fabric. These materials trap sound waves in their microscopic openings, similar to the way that a sponge traps water.

In summary, soundproofing and sound absorbing are two different, but complementary, processes. No matter which type of treatment you need, the sound experts at Acoustical Surfaces are happy to help. Once we understand your goals, we can assess your space, map out how sound moves within it, and suggest the best solutions.

See our selection of acoustic products discussed in this post Acoustic Panels Acoustic Panel Mounting Hardware Sound Absorbing Ceiling Panels

Additional Resources Creating Better-Sounding Rooms Download eBook Solutions to Common Noise Problems Download eBook CAD, CSI, & Revit Library Access Product Cad Files

316 Commentsroclafamilia 10/21/2010 at 9:26 amHelpful blog, bookmarked the website with hopes to read more!

Assuming this is the case, I will need some information about the room itself. Either exact or fairly close measurements of the height, width and length of the room as well as a list of the surfaces that make up the room. Floor, walls, ceiling, etc. A few digital pictures (even those taken and sent via cell phone camera) are REALLY great. If you have partial or half walls, or if the space is broken up in some way, we can discuss that together if you would like. Also, if you are trying to work with an existing or desired aesthetic, that can help me as well. If the panels or product NEEDS to be a specific color or something, run that by me as well.

I live in a second floor apartment of a duplex. My neighbor plays the radio and tv at the same time in both the bedroom and living room creating an extremely loud and annoying echo in my apartment. I obviously cannot install anything in the walls or rip up the carpet, but I was wondering if there is anything I could use to absorb the echo to keep it out of my apartment.

HVAC closets are frequently problematic because you have a relatively loud machine in a very small room surrounded by hard surfaces and a basically open doorway. When the machine is surrounded by hard surfaces, the sound coming out of the louvered door is not only the direct-line noise going out of the front of the machine, but the reflected noise pours out too.

I have had a lot of people start by installing an absorptive product on the walls to the sides and behind the machine simply to reduce the amphitheater-like effect that the closet has. This is often a very low cost, easy-to-install and relatively effective way to reduce the noise. The Echo Eliminator or Quiet Liner are usually the products of choice to do something like this. If you do not have a preference of what the product looks like and want to save a couple of bucks, I do have a fair amount of the Echo Eliminator on our discount/overstock/scratch-and-dent site.

The door, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult. Ideally we would want to install an air-tight, solid-core wood door and eliminate all of the gaps and cracks around and under the door. This is obviously not going to happen as the machine needs the airflow through the door to operate. There are a few things people have done in the past to eliminate the straight-line path from the inside to the outside of the closet. It is always better to install the absorptive panels first, take a step back, and re-assess the situation. If it is decided that you then need to reduce it further, let me know and we can run through your options then.

I am contacted relatively frequently from people in similar situations where large, beautiful rooms (constructed with materials of generally hard surfaces) have sound/echo/reverberation problems. Unfortunately there is a direct relationship between the size (cubic volume) of a room and the surfaces that make up this space and echo or reverberation time that it has.

Very roughly, based on the dimensions that you provided, I would suggest starting with 150-200 square feet of absorptive material in the room. You could always start with the tapestry, take a step back, listen and re-assess the situation. The reduction in reverb is going to depend on the size and thickness of the fabric.

Regarding your question about backing the tapestry with a product to increase the absorption, that is going to depend significantly on the tapestry itself (physical properties) and the distance from the wall. I would also want to find out whether or not the addition of the fabric made any audible difference in the space.

We are manufacturer of acoustic (sound proof) enclosure for the diesel generator sets.

We need sound proofing foam / material for the reduction of the sound level of the machine built / Generator set fixed inside the enclosure.

You are requested to please advice which kind of foam you recommend for this use.

I will need to know where you are located. What are the conditions that the products needed will face? I will also need to know more about the enclosures you are proposing to build. Where are these machines being used and what type of dB levels and frequencies will be predominant?

Hi, Ted! I love your blog, thanks for the very informative articles! So I need some help, can you please work this out with me? I live in a condo with thin walls/ceiling/floors and Im bothered by both my downstairs and my upstairs neighbor (ha! Should I just move? ? Anyway, Ive been researching this soudproofing issue a lot and have already done some work to block sound from the outside to my bedroom but it just hasnt help as much as I expected. My situation now is:

It sounds like you have gone to some fairly extensive lengths to soundproof your condo. I am so sorry to hear you are still having problems. Where are you located? It might be worth having a local acoustical consultant in your area make some recommendation on what to do next. If you can clearly make out voices and determine what TV show your neighbor is watching, there may be some fairly complex structural issues. I would hate to see you throw more time and money into this problem and not make enough of a difference.

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