Sound Card Woes
by Kirby Webber · in Technical Issues · 12/02/2003 (9:31 am) · 4 replies
Okay, I have been having some sound "issues" with my project when playing 3D sounds in 1st person mode.
I thought perhaps the issue might be driver related.
The sound card in question is a Sound Blaster Audigy, so I went to the Creative site and downloaded the lateset drivers (10/21/03 was the latest release, I think) and installed them.
The drivers worked, initially, but have since taken my machine to it's knees.
The system will no longer boot into anything but safe mode.
I have rolled the drivers back (Win XP), backed up to a restore point (pre - new drivers) and nothing has worked.
I uninstalled the drivers, the sound card, the game port, and every bit of software associated in any way with the sound card.
Yup - you guessed it - that didn't work either.
Taking things a step further I decided that perhaps the registry got borked with regards to the sound card, so I did a quick export and yanked the registry out as well (just the SB stuff)
Now I'm still in the same boat - nothing but Safe Mode.
What's particularly strange is that upon restarting the PC, it will *seem* to install the card, and device manager will even list as installed and having no issues related to it, though everything else on the system insists that there is no sound card.
Color me stumped, frustrated and exceedingly angry with Creative right now.
Anyone have any thoughts, or words of wisdom to impart on a porr sole whose main development machine just took a dump on him?
I thought perhaps the issue might be driver related.
The sound card in question is a Sound Blaster Audigy, so I went to the Creative site and downloaded the lateset drivers (10/21/03 was the latest release, I think) and installed them.
The drivers worked, initially, but have since taken my machine to it's knees.
The system will no longer boot into anything but safe mode.
I have rolled the drivers back (Win XP), backed up to a restore point (pre - new drivers) and nothing has worked.
I uninstalled the drivers, the sound card, the game port, and every bit of software associated in any way with the sound card.
Yup - you guessed it - that didn't work either.
Taking things a step further I decided that perhaps the registry got borked with regards to the sound card, so I did a quick export and yanked the registry out as well (just the SB stuff)
Now I'm still in the same boat - nothing but Safe Mode.
What's particularly strange is that upon restarting the PC, it will *seem* to install the card, and device manager will even list as installed and having no issues related to it, though everything else on the system insists that there is no sound card.
Color me stumped, frustrated and exceedingly angry with Creative right now.
Anyone have any thoughts, or words of wisdom to impart on a porr sole whose main development machine just took a dump on him?
#2
It completely refused to work, seems it broke on all the popular stable recommended AMD chipsets ( VIA in particular ).
I replaced the POS with a $29.99 Phillips SiesmicEdge and everything was great.
I just got a even newer MB now ASUS A7N8X and like all the current MB, it has great audio chipset built in, so the Crappy Labs card sits gathering dust, I don't think I could even give it away to someone and feel good about it :(
Moral of the story should be backup often!
I particularly like to use Acronis TrueImage for backups now that I have over 660GB of storage ( not counting my 15GB tape drive ) a few gigs of boot partition images is not that big of a deal and worth the time saved!
12/03/2003 (7:03 am)
Sorry to hear about this, but at least you are not alone. And this is not anything "new" I had a SoundBlaster Live! Platinum that did the same thing when I changed motherboards. 2-3 years ago and dumped my Dual PentiumPro setup for an Athlon.It completely refused to work, seems it broke on all the popular stable recommended AMD chipsets ( VIA in particular ).
I replaced the POS with a $29.99 Phillips SiesmicEdge and everything was great.
I just got a even newer MB now ASUS A7N8X and like all the current MB, it has great audio chipset built in, so the Crappy Labs card sits gathering dust, I don't think I could even give it away to someone and feel good about it :(
Moral of the story should be backup often!
I particularly like to use Acronis TrueImage for backups now that I have over 660GB of storage ( not counting my 15GB tape drive ) a few gigs of boot partition images is not that big of a deal and worth the time saved!
#3
On the other hand, our QA group has had problems with pretty much everything BUT Creative products. Onboard stuff especially, but some of the Philips, etc., add-ins as well.
I also must admit I'm confused where people have had problems after using a Restore Point. Restore points have almost been 'too good' for me, in some cases removing desktop icons and things I wanted left alone! ;) But in terms of a bad driver or software, restoring has always seemed to fix my problem. It's been cases where I >don't< have a restore point to use that I get screwed! ;)
d
12/31/2003 (10:16 am)
I've worked with Creative for years, and while I've heard of issues on the net, I've never had any problems at my company(s) or at home. I've used SBLive and Audigy boards, and haven't run into compatability issues like this.On the other hand, our QA group has had problems with pretty much everything BUT Creative products. Onboard stuff especially, but some of the Philips, etc., add-ins as well.
I also must admit I'm confused where people have had problems after using a Restore Point. Restore points have almost been 'too good' for me, in some cases removing desktop icons and things I wanted left alone! ;) But in terms of a bad driver or software, restoring has always seemed to fix my problem. It's been cases where I >don't< have a restore point to use that I get screwed! ;)
d
#4
I could have sworn that Creative promised the SB Live! would be the last soundcard I'd ever need?
-Eric F
01/01/2004 (8:16 am)
My SB Live! Gamer broke when I replaced a Radeon 7200 with a Radeon 9500 on my WinME system. AMD blames ATI; ATI blames AMD and here is li'l ol' me not able to play (legal) Mp3s and some movies. I could have sworn that Creative promised the SB Live! would be the last soundcard I'd ever need?
-Eric F
Torque Owner Kirby Webber
Basically, if you have Audigy card and it "breaks" your PC, you are not alone - there has apparently been quite a fiasco regarding the Audigy (aka Naughtigy, Audacity, ect and so on) and it's supposed compatibility with Windows XP.
The short version - Sound Blaster Drivers blow chunks. What's more they really don't give a rats arse about that fact either.
Uninstall your drivers, uninstall the card, and physically remove the puppy if need be.
In my case, I still couldn't boot into anything but Safe Mode - this is fine.
Physically re-install the card but do not boot up or otherwise give windows the opportunity to recognize or attempt to install that card. (My theory was that somehow the SB Drivers had placed a chokehold on the registry, which proved to be somewhat correct - long story there. I actually went as far as to run a registry cleanup utility, you're on your own there. ;-)
Throw your Windows CD in the tray, and nab the BIOS on startup.
You geussed it - tell the BIOS to boot from the CD first to get the windows installation routine to run. (In my case, running a simple repair from the CD while logged in resulted in a hardware configuration error and would not continue - go figure. =\ )
When prompted, choose to install the OS rather than using the repair console, then select repair installation at the next prompt.
This will send windows into the existing installation to repair any borked settings (theoretically).
At long last, you *should* arive at your desktop intact, though some of your display settings and whatnot will return to default values - most importantly, ALL YOUR DATA SHOULD BE INTACT! (Not gauranteed though - it IS Microsoft after all ;-)
Hope this helps anyone else out there who has, is having, or will have this problem in the future. =)
Signed,
An EX - Creative Labs Customer