Repairing and Upgrading Your PC

Installing a Sound Card

An audio adapter physically installs just as any other expansion card does. Some audio adapters require many system resources, so keep the following guidelines in mind:

If you are rebuilding your system

Install the audio adapter before you install other components such as network adapters, allowing the audio adapter to make first claim on system resources. Although Windows and recent motherboards usually do a good job of juggling resources, we have experienced resource conflicts when installing an audio adapter in a system that was already heavily loaded with other adapters. If that happens, the best course is to disable all adapters in Device Manager (except essential ones like the video card and disk interfaces), then physically remove those adapters, then install and configure the audio adapter, and finally reinstall the other adapters one by one. If you have problems, try installing the audio adapter in a different PCI slot.

If you are replacing an existing audio adapter

Before you remove the card, use the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet to remove audio drivers and supporting software, delete the audio adapter in Device Manager and delete all remaining drivers from the hard disk. Turn the PC off (even though Windows or the driver's uninstall program may advise you to reboot, don't reboot yet, or Windows will try to reinstall the drivers), take off the cover, physically remove the old audio adapter, and start the PC. Verify that all vestiges of the ...