I Capitulate!

After I had reconnected my computer here, I decided to give up on ever making my hardware work the way it's supposed to. Y'see, I had harbored an inkling of hope that somehow, impossibly, a change of scenery would magically cause my sound to reappear on my computer.

It didn't work.

Tonight, before Mom, Dad and I went out to dinner, we went to the mall. My plan was to find a store with a friendly return policy, pick up a new SoundBlaster Live!, test it, and keep it if it worked. If it didn't, I'd return it, try a new soundcard, rinse, and repeat. If worse came to worst, I would purchase new speakers and try them with my existing soundcard. If worst came to unthinkable, I would get a brand-new soundcard to go with my brand-new speakers. I was pretty sure I had my cost options worked out properly so that I would spend the least amount of money possible.

In case you don't already know, Virginia Is Different. In Jersey, we have malls where you can spend hours. The local mall here can be (and, in fact, was) covered in 15 minutes. The store nearest to what I was looking for was Software Etc., and, since I was looking for hardware, I decided I was out of luck.

Walking outside, I looked east and saw my salvation: Circuit City. Turns out they have a very liberal return policy (14 days for PC components, provided sealed software is unopened), and they just happened to have a few Soundblaster Live! 5.1s in stock. I picked one up for US$70 and hoped.

After dinner, I returned home for the moment of truth. I removed the evil Live! Value that has given me so much trouble over the past three weeks. I inserted the potential savior (considering I don't have a stereo at college: my computer is my stereo!) I turned on the computer, installed the drivers, and hoped...

And it worked.

I feel like a retard, because I couldn't make a hardware/software configuration that I knew to be valid work, but I'm over that now. All that matters is that I may once again listen to my music without headphones.

And in the time since my digital life ended and I was reborn, I have ripped most of my CD collection. Which is good, because most of it stays at home during the school year.

I'm up to over 1400 songs in my music directory. Seven and a half gigs of Oggy goodness.