Customer Reviews

StarTech.com 4 Channel PCI Sound Card with AC97 3D Audio Effects - PCISOUND4CH

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My hard drive crashed in my six-year-old Dell Dimension 8400, Pentium 4, 2 Gb of RAM. The OEM Creative SoundBlaster was a "special" model placed in Dell computers. The drivers were no longer available. I still wanted the computer to have sound but did not want to spend a lot of money for an older machine. This sound card by StarTech is perfect. The sound was much better than I expected. In fact, I'd have to say it sounded better than the SoundBlaster ever did. Setup was extremely easy. The software on the CD-Rom is very simple to use. I had no problems running it on my Windows XP Pro operating system. I would definitely consider other products from StarTech

There was no reviewer here that stated this works with Windows 7. I'm happy to say it does. Did not try the software it came with but it is for winxp and below. Installed the card and Windows did not have drivers but was able to give a link to a website to get drivers. After installing drivers and restarting computer; card works great!! Best priced solution to get sound on an upgraded winxp to windows 7 HP computer which HP no longer supports.

I know folks previous have said this card works fine with Windows 7. I'll have to provide a dissenting experience. I've been upgrading my own PCs for over 15 years so I know what I'm doing here for the most part.

In short, one set of drivers works fine except when you try to open the software utility that runs the card. On a fresh install of Win7 this creates a processing loop that hangs the computer and you have to force a reboot. Another set of drivers works fine except that the sampling rate is not correct, so any sound input via mic is distorted, making your speaking sound like a chipmunk during playback. So Skype, Ventrilo/Teamspeak, sound recording, etc are all unusable with this card. (Note, the most recent driver for this card is from 2008/Vista).

After months of trying to keep it working, the only method I found was using an older driver and turning off Windows automatic updates (because Windows keeps trying to update to the newest driver which is worse) and never trying to open the utility program. Keeping Windows updated is necessary though, so I've decided to remove the card and get a different one. I'm past the return date though so I can't get my money back.

So if you are a Windows7 user please think very carefully about getting this card. I wanted something cheap since my onboard sound hardware failed, but dearly wish I'd spent a little more money on something that the manufacturer states is compatible with Win7, since that at least would give me a leg to stand on if it doesn't work, in addition to having better driver updates going forward.

I installed this on an older rebuilt machine and had no problems with it. The drivers included made it the easiest piece of hardware I've ever installed. This has great quality sound and has made me very happy.

I got this sound card during a 2-week fight with my onboard sound and an old Soundblaster Audigy card. The Audigy did not want to play nicely on an XP/AMD64 machine. While trying to get that to work, my onboard sound completely died.

I have a decent home recording studio, and although getting this card installed was easy and painless-- despite outdated documentation-- this is by no means meant for recording. Its capturing quality is bad enough that I suspect that even someone not going for professional recording quality might even be disappointed. Yes, even voice only.

Luckily I can route around it with my Zoom H4's USB interface. Sound playback on this card is on par with other cards, so overall this card is useful and serves a purpose. Also, the game/MIDI port works well, and its latency is on par with the Soundblaster's latency, so no complaints there.

I am definitely planning on eventually replacing it with something better. Decent, but not great, value.

I kept having problems with the on-board sound card when I had to format my computer so I bought this one and it works great just make sure you disable the on-board sound card in the bios before you install this one.

Installed in a Vista 32 PC with minimal difficulties, one audio channel on my motherboard went out and this was an inexpensive way to get basic, decent sound restored. After installation, go to the StarTech website, download and install the latest drivers.

This card was purchased to replace an integrated sound card with poor fidelity and no Midi/Joystick port. Install was straight-forward and it worked with no problems. Sound is much better than original on-board system. Have not tried Midi yet. Not in the same class as a Soundblaster but not as expensive either. Good inexpensive upgrade.

Couldn't get the drivers to work, so I just went to the store and got a different card and it installed right away.. Dont know what is wrong but I didnt even bother with their chat support

I do some occasional recording and my old onboard sound card started to fritz, so I replaced it with this one. Installation was straightforward, and it works great. I am running WinXP and the drivers had no problem installing from CD. I opted not to install the bundled software- the interface is dated and hideously ugly. Nice simple sound card.