PCA Forums

In my games the sound keeps cutting in and out. I am guessing its because I dont have a sound card. I just have the sound that is build into the mobo. Am I correct? If so, what would be a good cheap card?

Onboard sound certainly isn't designed for gaming, but it should work just fine as long as you don't mind the mediocore quality. There should be no reason for the cutting out in games as long as you have the latest drivers for you sound. Make sure you have the drivers installed correctly for the onboard sound. When installing windows usually it won't install all of the drivers for you onboard sound if any. And if it does it will only install a dos driver. You will have to install all the directx/direct sound drivers from a cd, or download them from your motherboard manufacturers site. Hope this helps some. Also if you can't get it working, or just want a new soundcard I would reccomend the maxi sound muse soundcard. They go for $29.99 at bestbuy

Well I do have DirectX9 (or maybe 8) installed now. What else do you think could be the problem?

hehe, I'm pretty sure that you have directx8 But what I'm saying is there should be some drivers for your onboard sound. Pop in the cd that came with your motherboard and see if there is an auto-install screen that pops up. If so then look for something that has to do with audio drivers, or install drivers for xxxx such audio codec. If there was no auto-install windows that popped up just search the cd through my computer and look for some audio drivers.

Well, you see, I didn't build this computer. Its OEM. So I didn't get any CDs or anything like that.

Then if your looking to make the onboard sound work I would look on the mobo and try and find out what kinda codec it is. Then go to that manufactures' site and search for drivers, or you could just get a new soundcard. The Maxi Sound Muse soundcard is a great choice if you ask me I also love my SBLive! MP3+ but it is quite a bit more expensive.

I personally like my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.