Multimedia: How to Temporarily Disable Your Sound Card

This article describes how to temporarily disable your sound card.

If your Microsoft Windows 95-based or Microsoft Windows 98-based computer stops responding (hangs), or if you receive an "Illegal Operation" or "Invalid Page Fault" error message when you start one of the programs listed at the beginning of this article, temporarily disable your sound card to determine if the issue is related to sound playback in the program.

To temporarily disable your sound card:

Temporarily Disable Sound Card

1.	Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2.	Double-click System.
3.	On the Device Manager tab, click the PLUS SIGN (+) next to the Sound, Video, And Game Controllers branch to expand it.
4.	In the Sound, Video, And Game Controllers branch, click your sound card, and then click Properties.
5.	On the General tab, under Device Usage, click to clear the Original Configuration (Current) check box. If you do not see this check box, click to select the Disable In This Hardware Profile check box.
6.	Click OK, click Close, and then restart the computer.

To re-enable your sound card, repeat these steps. In step 5, click to select the Original Configuration (Current) check box to select it, or click to clear the Disable In This Hardware Profile check box.

If the issue does not occur when the sound card is disabled, your sound card may be unable to play certain types of sounds.