• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Pionex 486DX2-66 Sound Card Issue

vintageestatefinds

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
118
Location
Simpsonville, SC
I got a Pionex 486DX2-66 computer with Windows 95 I've been working on and have one last issue to fix before I sell it. The CD-ROM that was installed was proprietary and connected to the sound card, and the Hitachi CDR-8330 CD-ROM I got to replace it is detected by the system and reads CDs, but the audio cable that connects to it is a different size (larger) than that on the sound card. The system gives some errors with the sound card drivers on startup and the card is a no-name generic which Windows setup didn't detect. I figure I should just get a replacement sound card but would like to make sure it will use the same CD-ROM audio connection on it beforehand. The computer has only VESA and ISA slots.
 

Attachments

  • Pionex New.jpg
    Pionex New.jpg
    91.5 KB · Views: 1
Last edited:
Some pictures of the back of the CD-ROM drive and of the sound card would be a big help to see what kind of cable you need.

There really wasn't a set standard for the audio cables, I've seen dozens of different connector types both large and small. If it's too off, you might have to end up splicing two different cables together to make one.

As for finding another ISA sound card with the CD-ROM port for that exact drive, that'll be hard since they're all proprietary. It'd be easier to get an old IDE CD-ROM drive and use that instead.
 
I'll post pics tomorrow. I'm not sure how another IDE CD-ROM will help me though, I bought the Hitachi as a replacement and the sound card isn't even detected by the system. The CD-ROM originally installed and attached to the sound card would just result in the computer giving a Hard Drive Controller error and refusing to boot. Boots fine with hitachi, but no audio cable is attached.

So sound cards are only designed to work with one or a few CD-ROM models? I would have thought there'd be some that were at least relatively standardized.
 
Last edited:
Nah, the Hitachi should be fine. I don't think GiGaBiTe realized it was standard IDE/ATAPI already.

If I were you, I'd try to find a SoundBlaster 16 or something similar for that machine. You'll have pretty good DOS/Windows compatibility with one of those.
 
I'll post pics tomorrow. I'm not sure how another IDE CD-ROM will help me though, I bought the Hitachi as a replacement and the sound card isn't even detected by the system. The CD-ROM originally installed and attached to the sound card would just result in the computer giving a Hard Drive Controller error and refusing to boot. Boots fine with hitachi, but no audio cable is attached.

Oh whoops, I thought you replaced a proprietary CD-ROM with another proprietary one. If you have an IDE one, then ignore me.

So sound cards are only designed to work with one or a few CD-ROM models? I would have thought there'd be some that were at least relatively standardized.

Back before ATAPI was in common use to allow non-hard drive devices to be on the ATA bus, there were several proprietary interfaces specific to each CD-ROM manufacturer. It wasn't uncommon for early sound cards to have 3 or 4 different CD-ROM connectors for different drives like Sony, Panasonic and Matsushita in addition to an IDE connector. Some got extra fancy and even had SCSI connectors.

Here's an AWE32 with 3 different connectors:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vqLRHlr-ZXA/TbNphggvrtI/AAAAAAAAAG8/b7Rv5-mKkEU/s1600/CT2760.jpg

Trying to mix and match drives and ports on a sound card usually resulted in non-working CD-ROM drives. And even if you managed to match them up, you usually needed a special driver to use with mscdex, even for the IDE drives.
 
A bit confusing what you write here. The "audio cable" that connects a CD-ROM to a sound card simply ensures that when you listen to audio CDs you can output the sound through the sound card instead of the headphone jack on the CD-ROM Drive itself. That audio cable should be a 4 pin cable. If you have that cable attached to the sound card or not doesn't matter unless you plan to use your PC as your Audio CD player. Most people won't even notice if that cable is missing.


Another cable is the IDE cable, your Hitachi CDR-8330 is a "modern" IDE CD-ROM with a standard IDE interface. You previously wrote that "The CD-ROM originally installed and attached to the sound card would just result in the computer giving a Hard Drive Controller error". I assume you had that CD-ROMs IDE cable attached to the standard IDE interface of your motherboard, the one the harddisk also uses. Good thinking, but some old CD-ROMs - even though the cable "looks" like a normal IDE cable used a proprietary interface, they came either with a seperate controller card OR could be attached to the sound card controller (Note that these are NOT attached by the small AUDIO cable, but by the IDE-alike looking cable). The sound cards usually came bundled with these CD-ROMs since there was no standard, so while CD-ROM "A" could be attached to the controller on Soundcard "X" CD-ROM "B" would require a different interface as on Soundcard "Y" and so on. Modern sound cards don't have a CD-ROM controller interface on them any more, but back in the days that was incredibly common.

If you look at the picture Gigabite posted of the AWE32 you can see 3 different connectors - in this case "Sony" "Mitsumi" and "panasonic" and that were just 3 interfaces of over a dozen that existed. So my guess is that the "old" CD-ROM in your computer might originally have been attached to the sound card and not the IDE.

If the "old" drive is actually a proper IDE CD-ROM and giving HDD errors on boot a common problem could also be the master/slave settings. Usually if that happens you have both drives as master, you can usually change that with jumpers on the back of the drive. Make the harddisk the master and CD-ROM the slave. As most motherboards come with 2 IDE interfaces another rather easy fix is to use each drive on a seperate IDE interface, not both on a "dual cable". That way it doesn't really matter if they are master or slave, tehy won't get in the way of each other.

To make it short - tldr:

- Your sound card gives errors on boot. It is not found by windows. The audio connectors is the wrong proprietary type. Sounds like it might be broken. Get some SoundBlaster clone for 2 dollars on ebay, install it and forget about the old soundcard.
 
I want to replace the soundcard, I made the post to make sure whatever sound card I decide to buy will definitely be compatible with the replacement Hitachi CDR-8330 CD-ROM I got. The drive I replaced was a proprietary Sony CDU-31A and was attached to the sound card where it said "Sony CDU-31A", didn't have jumper settings on the back, and I read the HDD controller error can be a result of a dead CD-ROM drive.

Anyway, I have uploaded a pic of the back of the Hitachi drive and an audio cable from another computer I found that happens to fit it. What sound card would this be compatible with? Would any ISA Soundblaster 16 have the same CD-ROM audio in connection size?

Lastly, the two errors I mentioned regarding the sound were : The Audio 16 hardware is not responding. Please check your hardware configuration and then restart your system." and "Wave interrupt is not set properly. The sound card will not work. Please run setup from the Control Panel." I presume once the new sound card is installed I just run the detect new hardware setup and afterward remove references to the old driver to stop the errors from occurring on startup.
 

Attachments

  • Hitachi 1.jpg
    Hitachi 1.jpg
    86.1 KB · Views: 1
  • Hitachi 2.jpg
    Hitachi 2.jpg
    99.4 KB · Views: 1
Last edited:
Generally it is a better idea to remove any reference to the old card first in safe mode. Most of the later 16 bit sound cards such as the sb16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster#/media/File:SB16-CT2940.JPG have a suitable connector. Some sound cards just have a suitable header pin arrangement without a fancy socket. You should be able to tell by viewing a picture if the card in question. The cdrom audio cables with the smaller sound card connector shouldn't be too hard to track down though.
 
Last edited:
Alright well got a Soundblaster 16 on the way. Another problem has shown up though. I tried powering up the machine with the sound card taken out and it wouldn't even display on the monitor, but I could hear the memory ticking and then it passing the memory test. I put the old sound card back in and it booted to Windows 95 fine. Will I need to fix something before I permanently remove the original sound card or should this issue clear up when I install the Soundblaster card?
 
Back
Top