What a pain in the ass...

[mapsedge]

 Computer woes.

My computer can't seem to decide what it wants to do for audio.  I re-enabled the onboard sound (RealTek) so I could have a clean output channel.  I'm still using the sound card (Soundblaster Audigy) for line-in - for some reason the onboard sound doesn't want to provide me with a working line-in.

The audio output on my Audigy is so staticky as to be unuseable, and there just aren't the funds to replace it.  The only reason I'm keeping it is because it has the IEEE-1394 FireWire port I use for video capture.

In a box of old parts I found a pretty good sound card, and assuming that it works, I'll use it - it includes a MIDI port, but no FireWire.  I've looked online and found a card at TigerDirect that would work, but I'm hoping to borrow, barter or beg a FireWire card.

I've begun backing up my files and settings, which includes all the software I've downloaded and torrented all these years.  The only thing left is my email repository.

There is one audio project I'm in the middle of that I need to finish first, but once that's done, we're down to the Final Solution: wipe the hard drive, replace the sound card (adding a FireWire card) and reinstall the OS.  I'm not looking forward to it, but it's high time I did.  I usually rebuild my machines once a year anyway, and this one's two years overdue.  This time, though, because it's me building it, I'm going to partition the hard drive to isolate the operating system which hopefully will make the next time I have to do this easier.