This SoundBlaster 32 PnP CT3670 must live! Let me try again!

[@AndrewFremantle]

I'm not sure I'd call this a "BIOS". It's more of a configuration table. Either way, congratulations on restoring what looks like a pretty nice sound card.

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, it is probably just a place to store some information. However, I wonder if the PnP settings are stored in this chip as well. Thanks!

[@lexluthermiester]

It's actually called firmware, but BIOS(Basic Input Out System) works well too.

[@shaunclarke94]

​@@lexluthermiesterfirmware implies it has code. This looks to just be storing some configuration values.

[@lexluthermiester]

@@shaunclarke94 "BIOS" implies the same thing. Not really a good point.

[@Qyngali]

It's NVRAM (non-volatile random access memory) , not BIOS or Firmware. Hence the file name extension NVR.

[@awilliams1701]

Your soundcard works perfectly! Your soundcard works perfectly! Your soundcard works perfectly! Enjoying yourself? Your soundcard works perfectly! Your soundcard works perfectly! IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!

[@CptJistuce]

"16-bit testing!"

[@Pulverrostmannen]

I remember doing this with warcraft 2 for the first time in the 90s. it was really fun to tease the game

[@awilliams1701]

@@Pulverrostmannen I still do WC2 impressions all the time. In fact there is this truck I see from time to time that says "redi to serve". I do the impressions every time I see it, but my best impression......is "your soundcard works perfectly!"

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@awilliams1701​​⁠I actually devoted myself so much into this game that I learned to sound and talk exactly like a peon and later even made my own music song with it that I posted on my other channel called “Angry peon” I can talk very closely to a peasant in wc2 as well. Back in the days I memorized every single phrase in the whole game lol. I played it a lot to say the least ha ha

[@mlthmp]

Yes!!!

[@tony359]

very cool, particularly troubleshooting the BIOS and... fixing it!! Amazing!

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks Tony! Well, I would say it was luck that I stumbled upon the information that there's actually a programmable chip on the card.

[@harvaldi]

This remind me how I unlocked many years ago some functions on Geforce 3 Ti. Then I too compared few bioses and find out where are values responsible for enabling GPU temp sensor and unlocking sliders in driver for overclocking. After that my Geforce 3 Ti200 was somewhere between Ti200 and Ti500, so I was, very, very happy :) It is usually good to poke around. You never know what You'll find.

[@TatsuZZmage]

Last time i used a SB32 was my dads 486 to play Daggerfall, Rest well this night for tomarrow you sail for DAGGERFALL.

[@RachaelSA]

I started with an SB16, but used my computer to make music, so ended up with 2x SB16, 2x SB-Awe32s, 1x AWE-64 Gold and 1x ESS card, because back then there was no directX or ALSA, so each card could only play 1 wav (or 1 wav and 1 midi) at a time. I even had to turn off my serial and parallel ports to get enough IRQs, and then I would write my own software as a mixer for all the cards inputs/outputs/midi.

[@bitsundbolts]

Wow, I did not know that could be done or was a thing!

[@stingerutube]

man, I saw many similar fixes, where the man flashes a similar bios, and it works, yaay, end of story, but seeing such persistent this is a whole new level, great work

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks! I was curious, but now I got a new hint to investigate: what if the checksum had a flipped bit (there is only one) and the bytes I changed were in fact data that is correct...

[@stingerutube]

This is scarry 😂😂 But we dont know which one is checksum. Both good and bad filrs had CC + comparing other bios framework data is almost identical + the card is working now. so mostly you fixed the bits​@@bitsundbolts

[@JimLeonard]

The "20 02" you found in the working dump was the little-endian representation of the port. When you swap the numbers, you get "0220", or port 220h. This explains why the bad dump could never have worked, since "02 00" specifies a bad port of "2h".

[@bitsundbolts]

That's a good hint! That would mean that it was those bits that flipped. I could change the address via a config utility and see if this location changes. I'll try that! Thanks 👍

[@djrkzr]

It can't be so easy and obvious 😳 of course it makes a lot of sense

[@webfischi]

Someone working with hex for the first time, doesn't know that you need to check if it is big or little endian, also interesting the checksum to be at the end of the file, most modern files I worked with, had the checksum within the first few bytes. Also the difference between 0xCC and 0xEC is 0x20. We also learned that the first 4 bits are the cards vendor ID, which already hinted on how to read the dump.

[@FooBar-sf2qk]

I repaired the engine control unit of a VW Golf 4 in a similar way. A single bit of the flash flipped, so that the engine was no longer able to start (error P0605). By applying heat and cold, I was able to trace the error back to the flash chip. I bought a used engine control unit on eBay, read the flash and copied it to the defective one, which fixed the error.

[@revelationnow]

The VendorID is at the start of the file. You will see the first hex is 0E, read along until you get to 9C and reverse the hex order.

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, correct! I mention this in the post on my website. I figured that out later after the video was already done :)

[@genkidroid]

Had the same problem 8 months ago with a ct4500 after soldering the bad AWE chip legs. Found the same post on Vogons and it worked. Also upgraded from 512k to 2mb for soundfonts. I am using that card now on my Pentium MMX machine.

[@bitsundbolts]

You soldered a memory chip on the card or did you use SIMM modules? In case you soldered the chip to the card, do you need to change something else and will SIMM modules still work?

[@cromulence]

@@bitsundbolts Not sure how it configures RAM, but cards came with either 0K, 512K, or in the case of the later AWE64, 4MB RAM onboard. But it's not really a worthwhile endeavour, as there is a hard 28MB limit on RAM addressable by the EMU8000. I assume that this is because the 1MB onboard ROM sits in that address space and they gave it a 4MB gap as possibly once upon a time they wanted to offer a device with a 4MB ROM. This wouldn't surprise me as E-MU made professional synthesisers and the chip was possibly used in those devices.

[@genkidroid]

@@bitsundbolts i only swapped the 512k chip for a 2mb. It is a Simple mod that i found on vogons. There are some KZbin vídeos and the original is from a Russian guy.

[@lezbriddon]

the awe32 ! lovely card, best I ever had

[@ricargoncalves]

Amazing to how such tiny failure can have that much impact. Glad you were able to revive the card, great fix!! It seems some of the caps near the melted connector are bulging as well.

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, I should replace the caps on this card. This card was exposed to hot air so that the plastic connectors melted. It's probably a good idea to replace those caps, but that will be a lot of work - probably a bit boring for a video.

[@ricargoncalves]

@@bitsundbolts lot of work indeed. The main thing is that the card is working. Maybe those caps will only affect the output sound quality and, to be honest, is sound good to me!

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, the card sounds good to me as well. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary - but I don't have much experience with those Soundblasters yet. That is going to change though! I have a few of those cards that need attention 😉

[@ricargoncalves]

@@bitsundbolts keep them coming! I didn't have the pleasure of owning a sound card back in the days. Only discovering the whole world of sound of that era recently. It is a quite interesting topic!

[@bitsundbolts]

I agree! I still struggle with all the features that are available on some of these cards! I had clones and Soundblaster compatible cards back then. But I shouldn't complain, I loved my ESS audio drive (I think it was something like an ESS688)

[@mrsabre666]

I remember having one of those, nice to see it again

[@TheDeeGeeNL]

Looooooong time Creative Soundcard user here, still using the Sound Blaster ZXR from 2012. It still beats modern onboard by a long shot, especially with my AKG K601 headphones.

[@7828191]

Excellent! :). X-Wing is one of my favorites as well :)

[@Ale.K7]

Cool! What an unexpected repair, I didn't know these cards have a "BIOS"!

[@bitsundbolts]

That was new to me as well! Good that you used quotes around the term BIOS. Seems like I said it wrong in the video 😅

[@Mr76Pontiac]

Wicked. My being in the Retro scene (a bit too much, some may say) this will be a good thing for me to archive.

[@georgez8859]

Nice Job. Never flashed a BIOS on a sound card. Phil`s computer lab made a long Video about this card a few years back .great features for DOS gaming. Thanks for the Video

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks for watching my video!

[@Vile-Flesh]

Very interesting. I love ISA soundcards and I still have the original SoundBlaster 16 we got for the family 486 in a multimedia soundcard/CD-ROM kit from Sam's Wholesale club in 1993 which is a CT2230. My family wound up with a 2nd 486, identical to the 1st 486, and we got a 2nd multimedia kit but it has the inferior CT2290 which is a Vibra card I believe but the single CD-ROM header on the CT2290 is an IDE header. Your video made me think of two things I have always wanted to try which is: 1) to use an IDE pin header on a soundcard to read a hard drive and also 2) can a soundcard with multiple CD-ROM headers support multiple devices at once----such as a hard drive from the IDE channel and a proprietary CD-ROM from one of the proprietary pin headers (Mitsumi, Panasonic, Sony). There is very old post somewhere on VOGONS where someone mentions either using or the possibility of using the IDE header from a soundcard for a hard drive. I never could figure out how to do this. I do happen to have 2 or more computers with the proprietary CD-ROMS working with their respective soundcards. So much hardware and never enough time or room.

[@bitsundbolts]

I was under the impression that IDE hard drives would not work on soundcards - only CD-ROMs. I wonder if the BIOS will even be able to configure the hard drive connected to the soundcard. But interesting thoughts! I wanted to play around with those IDE interfaces anyway - especially the proprietary ones. However, some required non-standard cables. That will be a bit challenging.

[@FrankKrol]

If you look at de checksum, a change from EC to CC is only one bit flip.

[@charlesdorval394]

I was wondering if that might be it, maybe the other changed bits are the cards PnP config

[@bitsundbolts]

It is a possibility, but without changing some values (e.g. changing the IRQ from 5 to 7), it will be difficult to say for sure. I did compare two different versions of the CT3670 in this video - and the section in question was identical in both files I got online. I still tend to believe that those two bytes I changed were the ones that caused the card to malfunction.

[@pufero1]

@@bitsundbolts man all sistems whit PnP use a serial bus interface on the is/pci /pci express for identification thats menas all Pnp cards used a serial eeprom for store the ID plus it's a shared bus other use the same sistem is the EDID on vgas all monitors have one eprom on echa port if the screen is a PnP monitor and the fail is called EDID corruption plus yu can trick the sistem whit a 24xx pluged on the edid port of the vga.

[@dastrikeofsweden]

Great investigation and solution of the problem at hand!

[@Choralone422]

I was just thinking that card is an AWE32. I had one of them back then. Never did add any extra RAM to it though.

[@ville_syrjala]

I had a corrupted ISAPnP EEPROM on my GUS PnP some decades ago, which prevented the machine from booting. Fixed it by hotplugging the card to a running system and running the configuration utility to rewrite the EEPROM.

[@bitsundbolts]

Wow, hot plugging an ISA card? I never heard this can be done! Doesn't the BIOS need to configure some settings before you can use it?

[@ville_syrjala]

​@@bitsundbolts That was the only time I ever attempted it, fortunately nothing got fried. Suffice to say I was young and desperate :) The configuration utility knows how to talk the card without any BIOS support. I think the card would also work in a system without a PnP BIOS, as long as its resources have been setup manually using the configuration utility.

[@lexluthermiester]

@BitsUndBolts Fixing the firmware for that card is not something most people would ever think of. Nice work!

[@bitsundbolts]

Yep! Same here! I wasn't aware that you could do that! Especially that Creative NEVER released tools for that purpose. The tools in this video are modified DELL tools as far as I know. Good that Tronix made them available to everyone!

[@CaelThunderwing]

Had this same issue (card config corrupted) on the kneecapped awe64 and reflashing the card saved it, it's happily humming along in a Gateway Essentials 700

[@bitsundbolts]

Nice! Good to hear that this seems to be a common solution to fix broken soundcards!

[@jpnc2319]

Nice card. I usted to have a Yamaha OPL2 ISA Card and a ALS120 Sound Blaster compatible.

[@pantyukovk]

Your sound card works perfectly

[@CptJistuce]

"8-bit testing!"

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

I used this card back in a days as a part of DXR3/DVD/SoundWorks package. It was pretty good option for the money. You get all the things AWE32 can do (I think there was one missing effect or sth), without memory. But at that time those sticks were either dirt chip or you got them from just upgraded PC anyway, then you had full AWE32 experience on a cheaper card with lots of memory and good compatibility. For me it was the end of Gravis ACE + ProAudioSpectrum 16 combo.

[@nalinux]

Interesting experiment

[@ajdothack]

Good Job!!! This was one of the lucky ones just a flash and it's back, in most cases the eeprom is bad and won’t take the hex, I have fix them by desolder the old chip (usually a ISSI branded like yours) and replacing it whit a freshly flashed new eeprom.

[@bitsundbolts]

I already ordered replacement chips because I wondered if it is possible to flash those eeproms from DOS. Well, luckily it was possible without desoldering the chip. But now I have plenty of unused chips... Maybe I should work on this one project I had in mind where you can flash those chips using the parallel port on a PC.

[@MrQuist125]

congratulation with your "new" coundcard super video sir :)

[@danielktdoranie]

Very well done!

[@stamasd8500]

Nice. I have recently restored a SB32, my restoration was a lot simpler - it involved cleaning only. Quite a bit of rust on the back bracket and connectors, and also on part of the ISA connector. It all cleaned up nicely and the card works fine. The SB32 is the "value" version of the AWE32. The main difference is that it doesn't have on-board sondfont RAM (see the empty pads under the SIMM slots) which made it cheaper. So if you don't add memory to the slots, you can't use custom soundfonts with the card. If you do add memory to the SIMM slots, it becomes functionally identical to the AWE32.

[@stamasd8500]

Also, that EEPROM holds configuration data that is used by the PnP mechanism to configure the card. Many Creative cards have an EEPROM like this, and it can be dumped, modified and rewritten (I generally desolder the chip and do it using an external programmer). For instance you can unlock features on the lower priced cards so they become functionally equivalent to higher priced cards - because the hardware on the cards is the same, and which features are enabled on a particular model depend on the data in that EEPROM. I have successfully converted SB Live cards to enable more functions like Dolby DTS support etc, and also SB X-Fi cards in a similar manner.

[@bitsundbolts]

I was not aware of this at all. I guess when onboard sound started to appear, I just went with that. I also switched to Terratec at some point - it was my last dedicated soundcard ever. I have to read more about this - very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[@theALFEST]

ct3670 also does not have midi daughterboard connector and does not support 16mb simm modules.

[@stamasd8500]

@@theALFEST I'd be surprised if the latter were true. I have several CT3600 which are extremely similar to the 3670 (the only difference is missing the IDE connector, which I have no use for anyway) and they all work great with 2x16MB modules and 28MB soundfonts.

[@theALFEST]

@@stamasd8500 Mine didn't work with 16mb modules, which worked fine in ct3990. I also read somewhere that sb32 only supports up to 8mb.

[@TheRetroRaven]

Phil did a fantastic review of the card some years ago. I have one sitting in my K6-2 machine. It is an "odd" card, because it's closely related to the AWE64 and AWE64 Value.

[@bitsundbolts]

I've seen his video. I need to rewatch it to understand how to configure it. In this video, I needed to make sure it works again. Well, one thing led to another and suddenly I cursored through hex editors and configuration files. I'll try to apply what I've learned from all the comments below this video!

[@TheRetroRaven]

@@bitsundbolts Keep up the good work!

[@metalworksmachineshop]

Very cool. Nice save..

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks!

[@tigheklory]

Fun video! My first thought looking at the dump was that isn't a BIOS. Still awesome video!

[@bitsundbolts]

Yeah, I guess I didn't put thought into it. It was more like "flashing" = BIOS.

[@tigheklory]

@@bitsundbolts Did the contents of the NVRAM change after you used the config tool?

[@bitsundbolts]

I still need to check this, but I would assume that it will.

[@GigAHerZ64]

Notepad++ has hex viewer and diffing plugins to easily compare two files. ;) No need to flip between tabs of files.

[@harvaldi]

Good to know. I usually use for that total commander, which is good because mark the differences and allow you to jumps between them.

[@nicovandyk3856]

That is an AWE32 which came before the AWE64 - was quite a common card. Would say it was more in the 486DX2 era.

[@bitsundbolts]

I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this card and its features!

[@bengelman2600]

I had one of these back in the day. You could make some pretty big sound fonts with the extra memory. I think I actually had the 64 first but this was in a drawer of my roommates repair business. I remember them being super similar. At the time I just thought the ram slots were awesome because THAT ram type was 1 gen removed from PC use so it was like water. So cool.

[@bitsundbolts]

I agree. Soundcards with memory sockets look like serious business!

[@chrismazur6148]

That's a sounblaster AWE 32. It's the little brother of the Sound Laster AWE 64. It's the beginning of the AWE Series

[@bitsundbolts]

I read somewhere that it can be flashed with the settings of an AWE64 - I might have to try that some day. Maybe patch that IDE interface in there and have an AWE64 + IDE.

[@chrismazur6148]

@@bitsundbolts yes you can flash it with awe 64 data. But I dont think there is enough Rom for the ide function. The flash is 512bytes for awe 32 with ode and it's 512bytes for the awe 64 without ide.

[@CossieChris]

The AWE32 came before the 32pnp and before the AWE64. AWE stands for Advanced Wave Effects, the wave table synthesiser it uses. The number is the number of simultaneous voices it can play at once. The memory slots are for expanding the wave table memory from 4mb to 28mb on the AWE32.

[@boardernut]

Little brother in which sense? in many ways the awe64 was a step backwards, and the whole AWE series with the EMU8000 Synth was several steps backwards to the E-mu Preoteus 1/XR the Turtle Beach sound card had. Creative was always cuting corners and cost.

[@terryraymond7984]

I had some kind of Soundblaster that had a SCSI controller, the sound part worked but I couldnt find the correct driver for both

[@pascalmathieu9332]

Hi, lots of pci card have a little eprom chip on I2C bus that contains the " PNP_ACPI_Registry ". One generic card then can be sold form different manufacturers. Some additional infos can be on the eprom, you can transform a basic TV card into high end TV card (with the same BTxxx chip fir example).

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks for sharing this info - I didn't know any of this.

[@FalconFour]

Was one of those guys yelling at the screen to run the Creative config (setup) utility 😂 You had a PnP checksum error, not a BIOS checksum error... and to fix it, you overwrote everything about that card's identity with one from a different card. You should flash the original back to it, and then try using the PnP setup utility! Because you're using it on a 386, which wasn't PnP aware, it needed external help. I'd have run the Setup utility for the card and the utility would probably pick up the bad checksum and simply offer compatible settings for your system. By reflashing the backup and taking this approach, you can preserve what is probably your card's serial number in the EEPROM :) I don't imagine it was a bit flip, but rather an artifact of the shorted pins in the past, with the system writing garbage config data. Just my theory.

[@eddiehimself]

The annoying thing about the AWE64 is that they changed the regular SIMM slots for extra RAM on the AWE32 to some proprietary thing. Luckily, I managed to find a decently priced AWE64 Gold that was cheaper than a regular/"value" AWE64 with a RAM board lol.

[@RetroTinkerer]

Amazing, thanks a lot for sharing this. Now that I think about it, I think I should, I must, backup my cards EPROMs! Maybe they can host them in the Retroweb?

[@bitsundbolts]

That may be a good idea to have those images saved somewhere - and I think The Retro Web would be a great place.

[@Tech2C]

SB32 on a 16-bit ISA bus is a bit misleading...

[@bitsundbolts]

Hehe, I don't think those two need to match up. There was also a Soundblaster 512 / 1024 if I am not mistaken.

[@ajax700]

I think it means 32 simultaneous MIDI instruments, but it is very ambiguous in typical monopolistic Creative fashion.

[@RetroTinkerer]

The SB16 was called that way because was a card capable of 16 bit sound not because it used the 16 bit ISA, the AWE/SB 32 was a Sound Blaster 16 plus an EMU8000 Hardware MIDI synth capable of a polyphony of 32 voices (Lines of independent melodies) the AWE64 was a tweaked AWE32, also using 16bit ISA, but added another 32 synth voices by software but there were OEM versions that used the 32bit PCI, the Live used the newest EMU10K capable of 64 MIDI synth voices and the faster and wider PCI bus to avoid the necessity of onboard RAM but sound quality had nothing to do with that.

[@frequenttravelers]

I hat one of those... SondBlaster AWE32 PNP isa Version you could dump SIMM on them to load MIDI-Tables

[@lloydieization]

closer to a reduced size AWE 32, as the AWE 64 didn't use SIMMS but proprietary memory modules

[@MM-gd3be]

CT3670 it is using AWE 64 chipset. From user perspective it is an AWE 64 without soldered RAM. You need to put some SIMMs to load samples. Otherwise it is an AWE 64. There are some other SB 32 PnP models that are stripped down AWE 32, but this one is pretty much AWE 64.

[@bitsundbolts]

That is what I understood as well. I should even be able to flash the AWE64 settings to this card. Unfortunately, it will lose the IDE feature.

[@DefenderOfBoston-yo2tl]

Nice fix! But damn, seeing this makes me regret throwing out my AWE32 and AWE64 Gold cards all over again. Luckily I scored an SB16 for just a few bucks a f ew years ago on eBay and my very first sound card (a PAS16) miraculously found its way back to me recently, so I'll still be fine with regard to retro sound cards. 😊 It seems that bit rot affecting flash memory is quite the weak spot in old hardware, I did not expect that! Luckily, it appears to be quite easily fixed in most instances, provided that it is diagnosed correctly. I shall always consider this possibility henceforth!

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, bit-rot seems to be a real issue. So far, I had four cards that were affected: Elsa Synergy, Voodoo 3, GeForce 2MX, and this Soundblaster 32 PnP.

[@metalmusic1401]

makes me wonder if a short had caused the bit flips

[@bitsundbolts]

No, according to the previous owner, the card showed this error first. This triggered him to reflow the solder which caused some of the connectors to melt.

[@metalmusic1401]

@@bitsundbolts oh ok thank you for answering my comment keep up the great work I really enjoy the content on your channel. When I was in school I did electronics instead of Sport due to my physical disability

[@bitsundbolts]

I have not much experience with electronics - I'm trying to learn while working on old hardware. Thanks for watching my videos and I wish you all the best!

[@MonochromeWench]

SB32 was a PnP cost reduced more integrated OEM version of the AWE32. The main difference between the 32 and AWE32 was the AWE32 had a separate genuine OPL3 chip and also had 2 MB of Sample Dram on board. The SB32 had integrated OPL3 and no sample dram but had the simm slots. No sample ram was not really an issue as few people would have tried loading soundfonts with custom samples, they would have just used the default rom sample set. This card having 2 simm slots did mean you could install 2x 16 MB Simms and use a huge 28 MB sound font. The chip used by this card was the basis for the AWE64 series.

[@ResonantBytes]

The distinction between SB32 and AWE32 (or in this case AWE64) are blurry at best from my experience. Usually people claim the SB32 doesn't have any onboard RAM or the ability to add RAM. But as usual for Creative at the time, there is a counter example for nearly every assumption about any model they produced. I happen to have two counter examples for the above. The only thing they seem to miss compared to the "real" AWE32 is the Wavetable Header. But I have to admit, their chaotic product lines definitely add to their charm and mystery!

[@stamasd8500]

Yeah there were many models. The defining difference between the SB32 and the AWE32 is the lack of the onboard 512kB of soundfont RAM. There were AWE32 cards with and without the wavetable header, and I have several examples of each. There were also AWE32 cards without even the SIMM slots, which in my opinion makes them worse than this "value" SB32 because they are hard limited to having only 512kB for soundfonts, whereas this one can be upgraded to the maximum of 28MB. Larger soundfonts sound a lot nicer.

[@bitsundbolts]

Those cards are confusing! So many different CT numbers which may just differ in a single feature. Mix and match! My knowledge of those cards is very limited, but I want to change that soon. I am definitely going to work on this card again in the future and install some memory in those slots.

[@stamasd8500]

@@bitsundbolts If you do, source some nice soundfonts to load onto the memory, and you'll be amazed how much better this card sounds with MIDI music. A few soundfonts that I use (easy to find with a web search): Chaos Bank v1.9; Chorium Rev.A; Unison; GeneralUser_GS rev. 1.35 (there are newer revisions but they're larger than the 28MB that will fit in the memory of an AWE32 card)

[@detalite]

I have a Compaq DeskPro computer which does not boot. Only gives PC speaker error codes of faulty memory. But the memory was tested. There are also jumpers on the board that enable the automatic start function, but it only works when it is in the off position. The BIOS is in made Intel flash ROM which is prone to memory cell corruption, if i remember correctly. I need to find some BIOS dump to test it out.

[@Clancydaenlightened]

I grew up with realtek ac97 Came with the motherboard

[@Clancydaenlightened]

Earliest os I remember is windows 95/Dos, still have the original 98, 2000, me and XP install discs somewhere Even used to have 3.11 install floppies

[@kunka592]

I have all sorts of Creative sound cards but the most compatible sound device in one of my Win98 machines is literally the Realtek onboard sound. I also have a Yamaha YMF-744 PCI sound card on the same machine which is good but has some compatibility issues that the Realtek does not so I switch between them. EAX emulation definitely sounds weird with the Realtek (and Yamaha too, to be honest), so I disable that as well.

[@dim0n1]

as i remember, awe synth sound much better than i heard (10:30)

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, I probably need to use other tools (like aweutil). I wasn't aware of it. The good thing is though that the card seems to work - which was the goal of this project.

[@dim0n1]

@@bitsundbolts that's true, and go on, I like your videos :)

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks 😊 👍

[@therealjammit]

I'm interested in trying to cut and paste the "IDE" part of the BIOS into the AWE64 bin file.

[@bitsundbolts]

I was thinking the same! I haven't tried this yet, but maybe it is possible. Unless there is not enough space on that chip.

[@T3hBeowulf]

Very very cool. I have an AWE64 CT3980 and I'm thinking it'd be a good idea to dump that config ROM now while the card is still working. Absolutely fascinating! I'm curious to see if the AWE32 wavetable engages when you add RAM to this card and tell it to load soundfonts.

[@bitsundbolts]

That is what I am hoping for! I never had one of those cards - I thought that is how they sounded like - I guess I need to try again 😅

[@0xffffffffffff]

Whenever I'm about to compare binary data, I convert it to hex form with the hexdump utility, and then feed the output to a normal diff utility such as p4merge or kdiff3.

[@blakecasimir]

Informative video as always! I wonder if, as a preventative measure, it is worth using AWEDUMP then AWEFLASH to read and then write the BIOS even to working cards. The idea being that, putting the flash chips through that full write will reduce the chance of bit flipping / bit rot happening in the near term.

[@bitsundbolts]

Maybe a simple change in the PnP configuration would rewrite the chip as well (like changing the IRQ from 5 to 7). You could dump the content of your card and keep it safe for a future reflash. But to answer your question, I believe it is not a bad idea to rewrite the chip as you said. But I think it doesn't have to be done yearly - maybe every five years / ten years?

[@blakecasimir]

@@bitsundbolts We're setting this problem with flash drives nowadays I believe. Left unpowered for a while apparently flash memory is susceptible to these problems.

[@bitsundbolts]

Yes, that is what's happening unfortunately. Those non-volatile storage devices will lose data when unused.

[@mrobinson9297]

i didnt ave this exact model buti i did have a sound blaster 16 and 32. i dont remember mine having slots for ram. i think it had ram soldered to the board if i remember right.

[@modlabs]

Nice work! Now i know about a possibility to flash AWE EEPROM, thanks! And as for me the diagnose sounds strange. FM synth sounds to slow and AWE synth sounds wrong. Is it because of SB32 instead AWE32?

[@bitsundbolts]

I never had an AWE sound card, so, I wouldn't know. It could be because I do not have memory installed on the card. I'll try the card in the future with memory. And maybe I should try to get a real AWE sound card to understand what everyone is talking about in the comments 😂

[@Esty210]

If you have one of these, you might want to check out Eugene Gavrilov's KX driver, if that can still be scrubbed from the web somewhere. Check for the chipset being on the list and "Expand the potential exponentially!"

[@bitsundbolts]

I checked and I can tell you that those drivers can be obtained using the Wayback Machine. But those are for newer Creative models.

[@Qyngali]

Pretty sure those only work with SBLive and Audigy cards. Never heard of KX drivers for ISA cards.

[@bzuidgeest]

Most likely that is an awe32 very common card. The awe64 was it's successor.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

I have maaaaany Soundblasters, maybe I should take the time and dump these roms before they break too. I have so far not gotten this on any card of mine. Time really is rough on old electronics

[@lordofhyphens]

FYI: gVIM will do differencing and hex viewing, making this kind of comparison easier. 14:53

[@ResonantBytes]

You have a very neat card here! What I don't like about the AWE64 are their proprietary RAM upgrade modules, but that obviously doesn't apply here. :) The EMU 8k is a fantastic synth, but I guess the card was late to the party. I know rarely any game that used custom sounds with it.

[@bitsundbolts]

Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of experience with those cards. I only had some sort of Soundblaster compatible soundcards and never experienced these extra features. I hope to change this over the coming months. I have to experiment with sound fronts and the memory sockets. At the moment, there is no memory on this card. I'm looking forward to this new knowledge!

[@stamasd8500]

To use custom sounds in any game that can use MPU-401 for MIDI music, add memory to the SIMM slots, use the AWE control panel to upload any custom soundfonts that you want, and set the game to use GM/MPU-401 for sound.

[@Pickle136]

Ff7 has a sound font it loads for cards like this

[@ResonantBytes]

@@stamasd8500 There is a TSR supplied by Creative that provides MPU-401 emulation. The EMU 8k itself has its own interface to program its internal registers (there's a manual) which has nothing to do with the 401 or MIDI and the TSR provides software emulation. With all its benefits and drawbacks. Soundfonts can sound very good but General Midi doesn't do the EMU which is a full blown synthesizer comparable to the MT-32 but also with custom samples justice. If game studios had used it like the MT-32 and programmed their own specific sounds it would have sounded terrific!

[@ResonantBytes]

@@Pickle136 Cool, I"ll check that out! Thanks for the hint! :)

[@Constantin314]

this is so awesome, BuB! do you remember from where you've downloaded that Diagnose Utility program? from archive or a CD image from vogons, maybe? i have to try this with my creative too, maybe it is good after all :)

[@bitsundbolts]

Thanks! The diagnose utility is in the SB16 folder, and the drivers are in CTCM folder. You can find those Soundblaster drivers on Vogons or on Phils Computer Lab website. Search for "Phil Sound Blaster 32 CT3670" and download & extract the files "ctcmbbs.exe" and "sbbasic.exe" - this should get you started with the same setup I have in this video.

[@Constantin314]

@@bitsundbolts ty ty ty

[@sergiobisonte]

I remember trowing these cards in the garbage

[@bitsundbolts]

And I guess I pull them from the scrapyard 🤣

[@sergiobisonte]

@@bitsundbolts this was around 20 years ago.. no one cared... I even traded a voodoo5 5500 for some bs card back then, because it couldnt play most recent games...

[@bitsundbolts]

😭

[@francistheodorecatte]

EEPROM bitrot is something I've run into in synthesizers and car ECUs, too. most recently with the Bosch LH2.4 ECU in my SAAB; a bunch of bits had flipped in the idle air and base fuel maps that made it run terribly when cold.

[@bitsundbolts]

As long as people are aware that such a thing as bitrot exits, it can be identified and fixed. Looks like motherboards, video- and soundcards aren't the only ones affected.

[@VladoT]

For future reference, if the card is not detected at all by the flashing utility because of empty or very corrupted EEPROM the chip can be desoldered and programmed by selecting a standard 93C66 4Kbit EEPROM in almost any chip/eprom programmer. Also to mention this is actually not a BIOS but a type of config file (NVRAM).

[@bitsundbolts]

I learned that from the comments: Non Volatile RAM. Not a BIOS, not really a firmware, but just a storage for information that remains intact when there is no power.

[@Aeduo]

I don't entirely know all the mechanisms but yeah plug n play does seem to need some small configuration memory that describes something about the hardware. I'm not entirely sure all of what it describes though.

[@FireballXL55]

I am sure that PNP relies on data from the plug in device "PNP card" to allow the PNP OS to configure them. So be it a ROM or some sort of programable device.

[@bitsundbolts]

Most likely, the data of PnP is stored in that chip. At some point, those bits flipped as shown in the video and the driver no longer initialized the card due to a bad checksum.

[@B24Fox]

10:30 the AWE synth demo song, doesn't sound as it is supposed to.. Compared to the AWE32s and 64s I tested; here it has a lot of instruments missing, and no echo. (haven't tested this exact model, though)

[@leonardoliveira]

When a serial eeprom like that receives a malformed command it corrupts the data at an unintended position. Very likely the computer was interrupted by a ppwer surge, reset or powered off while the creative pnp utility was updating the stuff at the start of the eeprom which is how pnp settings persist.

[@bitsundbolts]

Could be. Unfortunately, I don't think the person I got this card from knows. I think the card was already bricked before.

[@huberthans4312]

Wouldnt call it BIOS. Its the PNP information. Its like an SPD on Memory sticks. And many cards have them. There are Soundcards with a firmware,though. EWS64 XL from Terratec comes to my mind

[@bitsundbolts]

I guess, it is more like a settings storage. If the card changes the PnP settings on this chip, that would mean that the checksum must change when I change something. Like moving the IRQ from 5 to 7 for instance. I might give this a try just to see if the checksum changes.

[@Qyngali]

@@bitsundbolts It's NVRAM.

[@LuisFCorreia]

the small change on the bios could well be a simple Serial number

[@bitsundbolts]

In this case, I am sure it was bit rot which prevented the driver to initialize the card properly. The serial number and Vendor ID are in the first line. The checksum of the data starts after those initial bytes (where exactly, I don't know, but it could be tried since the file isn't that big).

[@LuisFCorreia]

@@bitsundbolts yes, I've come across an issue with an old device that by simply reading and writing the chip (off board) was enough to revive it. keep doing these in depth videos, I like them all!

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

Ctf- capture the flag 🙂

[@kokodin5895]

i had a different problem with pnp isa sound card it was not sb nut some gold trump audio device i never was able to make it detect as pnp device on 486 board but the moment i got it in pentium board it magically worked so you never know how much messed up is plug and play implementation in the bios on the early boards

[@bitsundbolts]

Uh! That is tough to troubleshoot and very annoying if suddenly everything seems to be fine in a different system.

[@patrickbonner3764]

with both roms, awe music is not working ... it sounds like opl3 too.

[@bitsundbolts]

Probably because of no memory installed. The purpose of this video was not to test the sound quality, but to revive the card - which is due to the faulty data stored in the ROM chip. I will try the card again with some memory installed.

[@crayzeape2230]

I looks like the header bytes are not included in the checksum, so even if they bit-flipped bits it might not matter. The only issue is, that, as they are not included in the checksum, you don't truly know if your fixed file matches the original shipped state of the chip. That being said, the bitrot seemed to be in a localized area you you may have the original shipped ROM. I wonder if those first few bytes are config values.

[@bitsundbolts]

I'll try different things to find out what those bytes are. Someone suggested that maybe the bytes I changed were ok, but the checksum had flipped. Worth a try and see what happens.

[@thejeffchen]

0xEC is 1110 1100 and 0xCC is 1100 1100. There is only one bit difference between the two. So it's more likely that the 02 00 in the original BIOS was correct but the checksum CC was wrong.

[@bitsundbolts]

Hm... Interesting. So, you say I should go back and put the original values in the BIOS file and change the checksum... Might be a fun little experiment 👍

[@thejeffchen]

@@bitsundbolts If you have the time, of course ;-)

[@nurmr]

It might also be that the original bytes were 0x20 0x02, and that the utility reads 2 bytes at a time and failed to read the first byte, so only returned 0x02 (and padded it with a zero). The two sample files for the same card had 0xcc checksum and I bet the header has serial number and isn't protected by the checksum.

[@tlrptg]

every plug and play device has some eeprom on board. It's usually i2c programmable.

[@Pickle136]

I have the ct-3600 and it’s like yours. Basically it’s a sb16 plus the e-mu synth. Does not have the 1mb awe rom General midi in pure dos is only possible by running Aweutil and loading in a SBK font. Downside it work with protected mode unless dos32awe is used. In windows it can also load sf2 fonts. I maxed mine out to 32 mb (28 useable) and I could load masterpiece.sf2.

[@bitsundbolts]

This is the stuff I have to try. I've never used sound fonts before.

[@Pickle136]

@@bitsundbolts the downside is the waiting for the large ones to load :-)

[@andheeid]

earlier model awe32 were non pnp, this is just the pnp version of awe32

[@rubberduck4966]

Its a Soundblaster AWE32 but without soldiered on 512k of Sample RAM.

[@RetroTinkerer]

Excuse me, but isn't that what a SB32 is supposed to be? An AWE32 without any RAM.

[@rubberduck4966]

@@RetroTinkerer exactly. But the Video creator said awe64

[@RetroTinkerer]

@@rubberduck4966 because it is a CT3670, pretty unique among the SB32, the chips it uses are found in the AWE64. Search for it in Phils Computer Lab or in Dos days website.

[@JVAmorim]

Make a video about lpt áudio diy

[@Auberge79]

Hey, THAT IS NOT AWE synthesized music! Don't you hear that's FM synth? Something's wrong still.

[@bitsundbolts]

Well, that is a Soundblaster 32. It may not play properly without the correct settings table. Maybe this card was not supposed to do that. The only way to find out is if I flash the AWE64 settings to that card.

[@Auberge79]

@@bitsundbolts as long as it's AWE card and it must be containing onboard memory with samples, it should play AWE music. But something's wrong. Maybe onboard ROM (or RAM?) failed and the chip redirects midi to FM synth instead of wavetable synth. Bad thing is that there's no error message while something is definitely wrong.

[@bitsundbolts]

There is no RAM on the card. The spot on the card for the memory chip is empty. I would have to install SIMM modules which weren't part of this project. I will try that soon though.

[@Auberge79]

Maybe it worth testing it with Windows 98 and SIMM memory installed. Maybe it will work with external .sbk instrument bank uploaded to SIMM memory.

[@MM-gd3be]

@@Auberge79 About EMU8011 ROM I was wrong. It is present on CT3670. I would have to try my CT 3670 to check how this test sound like.

[@iicaie]

There goes another half an hour of my life

[@bitsundbolts]

I hope you enjoyed some of the intro and my HEX editor skills.

[@deneb_tm]

are you not aware you can just specify a subdirectory to list after the `dir` command, instead of `cd`ing into it first?

[@charonunderground8596]

Oddly, you won't make DOS easier to use by using the Norton Commander overlay.

[@petertorda5487]

Isn't it something wrong with that AWE synthesized music (diag utility)? It played like a OPL3 FM. This card should have 1MB wavetable synth in stock.

[@bitsundbolts]

Currently, there is no memory on this card. I guess I have to install memory in the sockets and activate some features.

[@petertorda5487]

@@bitsundbolts Hmm, who knows how it is working on this card. Anyway in games you can theoretically choose General Midi, and get wavetable music.

[@tiagomdute]

Hello, I have the same board, but mine is showing an error when entering 98 an error message related to SoundFont Banks and because of that the Midi does not work, but if I set the General MIDI through the panel the sound comes out. The problem is that I do not have 30-pin memory and I have already tried to restore the default through DOS and Creative software and it did not work. Does the Philips amplifier chip heat up on yours? On mine it is getting hot, but not to the point of burning my finger. I do not know if this is normal.

[@bitsundbolts]

I didn't test the Philips amplifier, but did you connect your speakers to SPK OUT or LINE OUT? I think you should connect your speakers to the Line Out signal. Maybe then your amplifier chip doesn't get hot.

[@kevin1970]

Awe sounds wrong. As far as i understand the sb32 is a vibra 16 with awe wavetable a budget awe32. I’ll have to check but i have a sb32 and awe test sounds just like an awe32 not like the “enhanced “ fm sounds yours sounds like. Ok found it. Mine is a ct3600 and sounds just like an awe32. Without booting up the pc from my fading memory. Sounds just like an awe32 but one noticeable feature i could add sustain and reverb to the fm synth which might be cqm. But has onboard 512k ram and full bass treble controls.

[@bitsundbolts]

I don't have much experience with those cards. I would like to test a real AWE64 and compare it with this one. Or, just flash the AWE64 BIOS (which according to a Vogons post is possible).

[@MM-gd3be]

About EMU8011 ROM I was wrong. It is present on CT3670. Probably should work in this test. I would have to try my CT 3670 to check how this test sounds like.

[@bitsundbolts]

Please let me know if your card sounds different if you get to test it. I had no memory installed.

[@RetroTinkerer]

Hello, quoting Phils website: "Sound Blaster 32 CT3670 - This is a very odd or unique card, as it comes with the audio chip from the AWE 64 and also has the DSP version 4.16. It therefore is basically an AWE 64 with SIMM memory slots to upgrade the memory rather than the proprietary modules that the AWE 64 uses." Also, from DOSDays website: "This card came with no onboard RAM as standard but this is only required if you want to load your own external Soundfonts, as it does have the 1 MB onboard ROM with built-in Soundfonts for any software that natively supports this card. This card is basically a Sound Blaster 32 with SIMM slots. The main chip on the CT3670, CT8903, comes from an AWE64. As such, it likely runs a DSP with version 4.16, meaning no hanging note bug." So the CT3670 is not a standard SB32 and does not use any variation of the ViBRA chip.

[@kevin1970]

@@RetroTinkerer wavetable awe sounds more like fm. there is something definitely wrong here.

[@sfryers]

The output of the AWE synthesized music test doesn't sound right to me. It sounds like it's playing CQM/FM audio rather than using the AWE wavetable synth.

[@bitsundbolts]

Maybe I need to install some memory on the card. There wasn't any when I made this video.

[@sfryers]

@@bitsundbolts I'll have to get my SB32 (the CT3600 version with some different chips) out of the attic this weekend and see if it behaves the same way. I vaguely recall having to run AWEUTIL /S on it to unlock the full functionality.

[@bitsundbolts]

That's interesting. I didn't try that at all. My intention was to get the card running again. Who would have thought that it's quite difficult to get all those features working 😅

[@sfryers]

@@bitsundbolts I've now had time to play with my CT3600. I get slightly different behaviour with this card, which may or may not be due to using a slightly newer driver version than in your video: Running CTCM states "Successfully configured 5 of 5 Creative Plug & Play devices" rather than 4 of 4 in your case. DIAGNOSE.EXE will play the AWE Synthesized Music test correctly, providing CTCM.EXE has already been run. However, some games (eg. Duke Nukem 3D) don't play music correctly unless AWEUTIL/S has also been run beforehand. This is all with no RAM modules installed- I believe the add-on RAM is only required to load soundfonts.

[@bitsundbolts]

Good to know. I'll try my card again soon. Thanks for sharing those details, I guess I will try to find newer drivers and try aweutil as well.

[@CaptainShiny5000]

I thought, almost every piece of hardware had a BIOS - or a Firmware, rather. If my hard drives have one, why not a sound card? Now, if you can access and update it or not - that's another story.

[@awilliams1701]

lol I'm like.....I wonder if it has a defective bios like those graphics cards you had. And then you said the same thing. lol

[@awilliams1701]

well that was easy!

[@sirdrinksalottrenchhugger4041]

10:30 That AWE synth sounds off .. This is what it should probably sound like: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJq2fmimiqyUmJY&ab_channel=PhilsComputerLab at 10:20. Then again, Phil is using an Awe64.

[@theALFEST]

awe music at 10:38 sounds completely wrong. It sounds like fm, not awe.

[@bitsundbolts]

Probably die to the missing memory - I never had one of those cards. If the card plays something, that was good to me! I guess I have to find out more!

[@theALFEST]

@@bitsundbolts This test does not need ram, it uses rom samples.

[@theALFEST]

@@bitsundbolts Try to run 'aweutil /s' after the ctcm.exe and before running diagnose. Or try different driver version.

[@bitsundbolts]

Hm, ok. So, then there is maybe something else wrong with this card? I need to find samples of what this card should sound like. Technically, it is a Soundblaster 32 (based on the text in the file I flashed to the card). Maybe it shouldn't play any AWE music due to disabled features? I can flash the AWE64 image to this card and see if it makes a difference.

[@theALFEST]

​@@bitsundbolts I had ct3670 and it worked fine in all games. Watch video named 'Awe64 Gold Synthesis compared to normal FM Synthesis' to get the idea. SB32 should sound the same.

[@truevulgarian]

If it's a 16-bit card, I think that shoudl be a SB Pro. Worth a shot anyway.

[@ltlk937]

Youre wrong about it being like an AWE 64. Its a plug and play AWE 32

[@spitzspitzer6117]

No it's not. It's SB32 not even AWE