I was called out to provide support to a bar who ran Xp and they had a gina system. It had worked for years. Microsoft updated something and the card would not work AT ALL. That was about 8 months ago. I grilled the DJ about all the stuff that they were using and it turned into Winamp, and the old Echo Gina card. He ususally left the computer running but it updated itself and rebooted. I downloaded drivers, messed about and nothing worked. The computer was rack-mount weighed over 60 pounds, the fan was making noise, and it was really old. I replaced it with a Vista system, onboard sound system, dropped in his mp3 hard drive, and the sound was 100 percent better than on the old system (according to the DJ). Of course I did walk around, make notes, and reset the volumes on the 20 speakers that were being run by a mixer/eq/crossover, patch bay, and 10 amps.

The other problems was the system was saying the version of XP was not valid. When I tried updating drivers crazy stuff happened. I'm not sure what in the Microsoft XP update killed the soundcard, but I do know they didn't need that Echo Gina thing for a DJ booth. I told them (I made this up but it might be right), that they had an illegal version of windows and Bill Gates latest updated messed up the drivers. They are happy and called last week wanting 2 new big speakers and an amp.

The point of the story is unless you know what Microsoft is doing to your system, you can have all kinds of problems. Especially if you have some sort of one off setup. I'd turn off the ability to update your computer, and evaluate the need to do it at all if it's working.

Being net savvy goes a long way to keeping a system stable. I don't open attachments in emails, nor surf to places I'm unsure of on my 'music' system.

John Conley
Musica est vita