Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!agate!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!sundog.tiac.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.dorsai.org!whitfb From: whitfb@dorsai.org (Whit_Blauvelt) Subject: Blast Sound Blaster Message-ID: Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York, NY X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 05:54:55 GMT Lines: 50 If you get Creative's Sound Blaster Discovery CD/16 package it says on the outside of the box "Simple Installation." On the plus side, if the system worked, it would be a good deal this week. Street price is down under $300 for a 16 bit sound card, 2x CD and speakers. But the manual is shit. It tries to make installation sound simple by leaving out the details. The installation programs are shit. They give error messages like "script line 103 has produced error code 2247." Technical support is shit. The guy was nice enough, but had no idea what the error codes meant (and there's nothing in the manual). He tried to convince me to call another number, tomorrow, and have them send me new installation disks (neither the CD nor the sound card installation program would run without error, despite extensive trimming of my config.sys and autoexec.bat files - and the CD installation program also produced error messages from QEMM and EMM386). Said they'd get me the disks in a few weeks. "Well can I just get fresh copies of the programs from your BBS?" "No. We don't have them there." "Why not? No-one could use them who didn't have your hardware." Anyhow, since Norton Diagnostics tells me that there is an error when it tries to test both the sound card IRQ and the CD IRQ (and I've got nothing conflicting), the most likely bet is that it's the Sound Blaster card itself which is the lemmon. So I'm going to insist that the store exchange it tommorow. They'd better, because Creative's warranty is, well, shit. They promise that if you return a defective part to them, they'll at least send you a reconditioned one, in their own good time. And I though I was paying for new. Anyhow, that "simple installation" has so far wasted about six hours. Whit