Monster Sound, Monster Hassle
Written: May 19 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Quality sound
Cons: space hog, poor drivers, incompatibility
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| FadeMuse's Full Review: Rio Diamond Monster Sound MX300 |
Monster Sound has great possibilities and is compatible with most computers, but not this one. Since it's installation, I've experienced continuous screen freezes, and drive crashes that require cold booting (turning your computer off and on).
Thinking the problem was memory and space, I transferred lots of files to other drives, and deleted numerous old programs and files.
Still no fix.
A check with the company's site reveals, yes, it's possible there could be a compatibility problem. You need a patch from your makers, we can't help.
VIA Model=P5BV3+ from manufacturer DFI.com is the culprit.
Hours of searching finally got me connected to the makers of my motherboard who verified this problem and told me to download all the updates from their area; BIOS, drivers, etc, but that they were not responsible if my computer didn't restart or all info was lost.
Gee, thanks guys.
I've found that if I don't run any sound or video while working on the computer, I'm less likely to have problems. But occasionally a too quick click of the mouse can cause it to freeze as well.
Music can only be played while no other programs are running.
I'm also aware this review could have gone into motherboards, but there's no place for it. And my problems didn't start until I installed The Monster. Ya'll will have to consider this a two fold review. I'm unhappy with my motherboard, and with The Monster.
Monster converted all my midi files for playability with it's programming, nulling out a midi maker program I use.
It's deactivated my default Windows viewers AVI, MOV, and RAM, and now has deemed itself the default. I can no longer resize video windows which means they are very, very small.
It doesn't like sharing with my Mp3 player which means lots of crashing.
Monster Sound also took up a huge amount of disc space, nearly 1/4 of my 2gig drive. That's more sound than I'd ever need.
As a product, I prefer SoundBlaster over Monster. Monster would be good for gamers or people who require peak sound, but for normal usage, it's more than anyone would need.
I've downloaded the components I need and tonight will be refiguring my drive.
This review will updated as soon as I'm back online and have evaluated whether the installation fixed the problem. Hopefully no data will be lost. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Update to come
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Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
FadeMuse
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Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 24 members
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