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I just installed a new Radeon 2900 XT videocard. After I installed the driver and rebooted my computer, my X-Fi card stopped working. What happened, and how can I get my soundcard back?
Your soundcard hasn’t really stopped working, it’s just that your videocard has usurped its authority. Don’t worry, there’s an easy fix. But first, allow me to explain what happened: Videocards based on AMD’s Radeon 2000- and 3000-series GPUs have integrated audio capabilities, so they can output both digital video and digital audio over one cable using an HDMI adapter fitted to the card’s DVI output.
This is useful if your monitor is equipped with an HDMI port and speakers and you want to use them, or if you route your audio and video signals through an A/V receiver that has HDMI inputs and outputs. In your case, it sounds as though you’d prefer to use your X-Fi card and external speakers. If that’s so, all you need to do is open your Windows XP control panel and click Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices. Next, click Sounds and Audio Devices, choose X-Fi from the Device drop-down menu, and click OK. If you’re using Vista, your control panel choices will be Hardware and Sound, Sound, and then Manage Audio Devices. Click the Playback tab, select X-Fi, and click the Set Default button. These steps should return control to your X-Fi card.
Help! I used to be able to select all the files in a folder using Windows Vista, but I can only select one file now. What’s up, Doc?
Well, Winston, the Doctor is sad to report that Vista treats its folder themes differently than XP does. According to Microsoft, an application has added a key to the Windows registry that prevents you from selecting multiples of anything in that particular folder—no keyboard shortcuts, no drawing of mouse boxes, nothing. This likely happens on folders within a particular theme, so the Doctor wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you’re having the same issue across, say, all of your picture folders.
There are two ways to fix this: First, go to your annoying folder and select the View tab in Folder Options. Next, click the Reset Folders button. That should fix your issue, but you’ll have to go back and spiffy up your folder settings to get back the look you just nuked.
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| Selecting a healthy folder and clicking “Apply to All” won’t necessarily fix problems across all your folders. Vista treats each folder type independently, unlike Windows XP. |
If that doesn’t work, right-click the guilty folder and hit Properties. Then click the Customize tab and make a note of what type of folder Vista thinks it is. Go back to your desktop and make a new folder. Right-click it, hit Properties, and click the Customize tab again. Set this folder to be a different type than the annoying folder and click Apply. Then go back and set it as the same type as the annoying folder and hit OK. Now to overwrite the folder’s characteristics, click the Tools menu in Windows Explorer and select Folder Options. Click the View tab, and select Apply to Folders. That should fix your problem.
I am running Windows XP. In the directory C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data, there are Apple and Apple Computer folders. In each of those folders is a folder called Installer Cache. That Installer Cache folder contains old install files of iTunes, QuickTime, and Apple Mobile Device Support. Can I delete these without any repercussions?
The Doctor advises you to nuke these folders with extreme prejudice. They’re leftover files from the many updates of your Apple software and are wholly unnecessary for your daily software operations. And if, by chance, you ever encounter an issue with files missing from Installer Cache, just go back and reinstall iTunes. Potential problem solved.
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The Doctor can’t stand it; he knows you planned it. He’s gonna set it straight, this techy hate. He can’t stand doctoring when he’s in here, because your computer deal ain’t so crystal clear. So while you sit back and wonder why, you should be e-mailing questions to this Doctor guy: doctor@maximumpc.com |
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