crystal fusion sound card......can't get it to work....help!

Ohh yeah, i'm running windows xp pro.

It'd be useful to know the make and model of your laptop, but I'll take a flyer here. Since Crystal Semiconductor was bought out by Cirrus Logic, it appears no direct manufacturer support for their audio adapters is available.

First, check in Device Manager (Start>Settings>Control Panel>System>Hardware tab> click the "Device Manager" bar, and click "View" to be sure "Devices by type" is selected). to see what it has to say about your soundcard - any yellow punctuation marks or red "X"s are sure clues there's something wrong there. Next, check the adapter's properties, and determine the actual name and model of the adapter, as well as the version of its drivers. Then go to the support and download pages of the laptop's vendor, and download the latest drivers and associated software (if any) for your particular setup. Don't install them yet.

I know some IBM laptops used Crystal Fusion audio adapters, so if yours is an IBM, you might have luck if you go to IBM Support: Drivers and Downloads ... over on the right-hand side of the page is "Quick Path", a utility that can be used to automatically detect your IBM laptop's components.

Some eMachines and Gateway notebooks used Crystal Fusion adapters too. If your laptop is one of those, you might try them.

Once you've located and downloaded the appropriate drivers - if in fact you can - go back into Device Manager, select your audio adapter again, and click "Remove". Confirm when prompted, then go to Add/Remove programs, remove the associated program. if any, and reboot. Windows should re-detect the adapter and want to re-install whatever drivers it has for it. Don't let it do so. Go back into Device Manager, select the audio adapter again, select "Properties", and click "Update Driver", using the "Advanced" option and pointing the Wizard to the location of the driver you just downloaded. Note: its common for dowloaded drivers to be in Zipped folders; if these are, be sure to extract them before trying to update your device, and when you point the wizard, point it to the folder containing the extracted files.

Hope that works for ya - otherwise, it sounds like it might be screwdriver time. If it turns out that way, or if you can't find the right drivers and software, it might be best to once again go into Device Manager, disable the built in audio adapter in all profiles, delete the associated software in Add/Remove Programs, and use either a PCMCIA cardslot or USB audio adapter (most of which offer significantly better performance than audio adapters typically found in laptops anyway - especially with external speaker setups)

Good luck. Lemme know whatchya come up with, if ya would, please. Thanks.

Hi Timber!

Thanks for all this info. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I'm still trying to understand and incorperate the info you gave me in regards to my laptop. My laptop is an IBM 300e....it's an oldy, but it's been upgraded some. I'm not sure if I can do this stuff on my own, so I think I may have to take it in somewhere(don't know where).....but I thank you for your help. Do you know how I can find out about upgrading this type of laptop.....things like faster celeron, and probably a new sound card?

I doubt it would be practical to do major hardware upgrades, like a processor, on an older laptop. Hell, its rarely practical on a newr laptop. On the other hand, as mentioned, external audio solutions are relatively cheap and pretty much nothin' to install.

Ok, thanks timber....I have been looking into external sound cards on ebay, I just wasn't sure if they were any good or not.

One more thing if you will timber. If I buy one of these external sound card things, will I have to use external speakers then too? Or will it play through the speakers on the laptop? Thanks!

Good question. Dunno 'bout the internal speakers for sure; I don't have a good answer ... I suspect internal speakers may not be supported. Check the vendor's websites. You may hafta download owner's manuals to find out. All the reviews I've seen have dealt with external speaker and headphone performance ... not too surprisin', since laptop speakers aren't given much thought by anyone

You suspect right, external speakers are needed for sound card.....but aside from that, they're cheap on ebay, so I think i'll just buy one...thanks again.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense; it'd figure a laptop's built-in speakers would be hardwired right to the audio adapter - no reason to do it otherwise. Never even really thought about it myself, to be honest.

Well, good luck - hope it works out for ya. Keep us posted.