Sound for Windows 2003 Server

Recently I needed to add sound capability (to hear alerts) to a Windows 2003 Server. The motherboard didn’t have an integrated sound, and I was running short of PCI slots. Additionally I soon discovered that most sound cards available today don’t declare support for Windows 2003, though for many one can find suggestions on the net “to try to see if Windows recognizes the card as the proprietary drivers supplied with the card won’t work.”

Poking around for a while I came across SiiG USB SoundWave 7.1 which comes with driver support for Windows 2003 and it doesn’t take up a PCI slot. Problem solved. Installation was a breeze (once I realized no sounds can be heard over Remote Desktop..).

The only remaining snag was that when I plugged the USB SoundWave output to an auxiliary input in an older Cambridge SoundWorks speaker set, I was blasted with an amplitude that seemed to have been set to “11”. The speakers use an in-line volume control, and of course only one such cable was provided with the speaker set (and that cable was already in use with a workstation PC). Even when the sound was turned to Very Low in the mixer, the pops and cracks when the system reboots and the USB SoundWave initializes were deafening (being fed at line level to the amp). Some more Googling produced a small accessory cable which, once arrived, installed, and turned about half-way down, fixed the problem.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.