In the not-so-distant past, add-on sound cards were a vital upgrade for any PC enthusiasts, with the Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 being the cream of the crop, but 30 years on, these early sound cards are beginning to fail.
YouTuber Necroware has posted a video documenting the repair of a Sound Blaster 16, which demonstrates how to diagnose and fix common issues with these vintage cards, such as broken printed circuit board traces and dead chips.
In addition, the author highlights that these once ubiquitous sound cards are becoming desirable again in the 2020s and advises that they can still be used via the LPC bus even if a user’s motherboard lacks an ISA slot.
Lastly, the author notes that sound card audio quality is still vastly superior to that of built-in motherboard sound cards.
