I have a dead Gateway and want to rescue the Soundblaster card to run my Boston BA735 Digital Speakers which basically won't work on any other computer. The box of the dead computer is open, and there are two wires connected to the soundcard, one going to what looks like the modem and one going into the inner workings.

 

How do i disconnect these connections safely before pulling out the card ? Also, will I need to reconnect them in the new computer ? It already has onboard sound drivers, but as I said they can't run these speakers.

 

Is there anything else I will need to know when putting the soundcard into the new computer? It is a Dell Dimension 3000 desktop.

 

 

Thank you very much.

 

-das

To remove the internal connectors, you just need to press down on the little clip on the top side and pull. Sometimes you really need to push the clip in there to get it free. The cable going 'to the innards' is connected to the output of the CD drive; there's no real need to reconnect either cable on the new machine, since few drives have play buttons anymore, and few modems support output from the sound card.

 

To install the card in the new machine, you need to know the manufacturer and model number of the card, or have a disk with drivers you know are compatible with the card and the OS on the destination machine. You'll also need to disable the onboard sound card via the BIOS menus or a jumper.