AC97 Sound solutions

What is AC97 Sound?
The AC97 Specification provides a way of providing a low cost, high quality sound solution to board manufactures.

This is done by embedding half of the required technology in the motherboard chipset (South Bridge) and the other half is a separate chip from an OEM supplier. As the solution is fitted/provided in two locations, it sometimes must be disabled in two locations should you wish to add another PCI sound card.

  The Embedded part of the solution (Southbridge) provides the Sound output and can normally be enabled/disabled in the BIOS.
  The Additional Chip (Such as the AD1881) provides the effects (such as reverb) to the sound signal and sometimes has to be enabled / disabled by a link on the motherboard. Some Chips such as the Analogue Devices AD1885 also offer advanced features such as surround sound.

Please be aware that the AC97 Specification also includes provision for Modem and LAN technology built within the chipset.
As a result changing your AC97 Sound configuration can also effect your AC97 Modem/LAN card.
Please try to follow the following rules:

1) If an AC97 Modem/LAN card is used in conjunction with an AC97 Sound solution, then use the links on the Modem / LAN card to set the card as the Slave device (Sound must be master by default).

2) If you disable the AC97 Sound solution (by BIOS & sometimes link on the MB), then you need to promote the modem/LAN to be Master (by links on the Modem/LAN card) . You cannot have a Slave device without a master.

 

Below is a list of the various motherboards that FSC uses which support AC97.

Drivers for these solutions can be obtained on the FSC software pool:
WebSite: http://www.fsc-pc.de/support/Softwareassist_e.asp

AC97 SND DSP
Used on
Driver File:
Analogue Devices 188x
Gigabyte GA-6vx7-4x
FSC D1188 , D1192
MicroStar MS-6178
Asus CUV4X-M (new)
DFI CW35-l
Biostar M6TWG
AD188X.ZIP
Crystal Sound 429
Asus CUV4X-M (old)
CS429XW98.ZIP
SigmaTel STAC972
Biostar M6VCF
Biostar M6VCG
Biostar M7VKA
V5.12.01.3070.ZIP