 | Great card, but hard to find drivers
rating: 3
I've bought this card to be used in one of my older PCs. The card works nicely, and the sound is great.
However, I must warn you that finding drivers for this card can be a real pain. SB0220 is an OEM version. CreativeLabs does not provide drivers for their OEM cards directly. If you dowload drivers for Live 5.1 cards from CreativeLabs web site, the installation program will abort with error that it hasn't found any Sound Blaster cards in the system.
It is possible, but not trivial, to find drivers that work with this card on the net. There's several "drivers" web sites around that has them. Just make sure you don't leave them your email address (or leave them some discardable/temporary email address). Some of those drivers work good, some don't. Have patience, and with a bit of trial&error you'll find a driver that works OK with this card.
If you want a card that you'll just plug into your computer and have no trouble finding the drivers, than this particular submodel of Live! 5.1 card is not a card for you. Make sure you buy *retail* version. CreativeLabs provides drivers only for their retail cards. OEM cards, zero support. Not even generic device drivers. Not even for the OEM cards that are absolutely identical to retail versions (apart the model number). However, it is really hard to tell which Live! 5.1 cards are retail and which are OEM. This card is not produced anymore (available only as old stocks or used). Product number databases are incomplete, have errors, and CreativeLabs web site isn't helpfull in identifying them either. It's kind of hit and miss. I really must give credit to this particular seller for telling up front that the card is OEM in the description of the product.
This card really deserves 5 stars. It is really an excellent and outstanding card. Great value. But because of the CreativeLabs policy of not providing generic drivers for OEM versions of their products, I must take at least 2 stars from this particular submodel (SB0220) of the SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 sound card.
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