Creative up to their old tricks?

[Pariah]

As a spokesman for so many people, you need to do better research so you don't make them all look collectively retarded:


"Abit Fatal1ty AN8 Motherboard - UPDATE

Attention all Fatal1ty motherboard owners.........

I finally got my XFI extreme music card to work. I was getting unknown PCI device errors and non-booting issues...

I did some research on Abit's website and they have creaded a Beta BIOS 18 update.

Here is the link to the forum...(please allow me to post this link)

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=93036

----------------------------------------------------------------

I had to uninstall all XFI drivers and software, turn off my PC, remove the card from my PCI slot, then restart my PC.

After downloading the zip file, I unzipped it and ran my FlashMenu program and it installed and flashed my new BIOS....

I turned off my PC and installed the XFI card. I installed the original drivers and programs that are on the CD that came with the card.

I cold and warm rbooted my PC and NO ERRORS..... YAH!!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my setup:

AMD FX-55 Processor
ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 motherboard (ver. 18 BIOS)
BFG 7800GTX
2GB Corsair XMS PRO
NEC DVD/RW Burner
2x 250gb Maxtor 16mb Hard Drives
Linksys Wireless G PCI Adaptor

Official Clan [eXg] Member
eXg. DarkStarGTX "


Different post:

"ho-hum...it's nice that evga, msi, abit and epox have addressed the problem with bios updates...still no luck with mine. Any Albatron K8SLI users out there with the unknown pci device on cold boot-up problem? "


Clearly other users are finding the updates that you aren't.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Brian48

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: Brian48
Not true about Abit. They released one a few weeks ago. Abit owners have reported this in Creative's forum. Epox just release a wave of updates this week. The updates are coming, it just takes a little while.

In any case, I think it's pretty clear that if you're leary about it, just DON'T buy it. Why deal with the hassle if you don't trust the company to begin?

I just checked ABit's site, and no update has been made for the K8N Ultra board. I just checked EPoX's website, and this was not listed as a fix for the 9NPA+ Ultra. Could it be that EPoX was releasing updates for other items totally unrelated???

I can't find the links for the Epox, here's the ones for Abit.
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=93036
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs...d=26289&view=by_date_ascending&page=15

I just checked out the ABit links. THE BIOS IS A HACK AND NOT AN OFFICIAL ABIT BIOS.

Hardly a fix, and certainly not one that should be flashed. Warranty=VOID if flash goes bad to the point of no return.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Pariah
As a spokesman for so many people, you need to do better research so you don't make them all look collectively retarded:


"Abit Fatal1ty AN8 Motherboard - UPDATE

Attention all Fatal1ty motherboard owners.........

I finally got my XFI extreme music card to work. I was getting unknown PCI device errors and non-booting issues...

I did some research on Abit's website and they have creaded a Beta BIOS 18 update.

Here is the link to the forum...(please allow me to post this link)

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=93036

----------------------------------------------------------------

I had to uninstall all XFI drivers and software, turn off my PC, remove the card from my PCI slot, then restart my PC.

After downloading the zip file, I unzipped it and ran my FlashMenu program and it installed and flashed my new BIOS....

I turned off my PC and installed the XFI card. I installed the original drivers and programs that are on the CD that came with the card.

I cold and warm rbooted my PC and NO ERRORS..... YAH!!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my setup:

AMD FX-55 Processor
ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 motherboard (ver. 18 BIOS)
BFG 7800GTX
2GB Corsair XMS PRO
NEC DVD/RW Burner
2x 250gb Maxtor 16mb Hard Drives
Linksys Wireless G PCI Adaptor

Official Clan [eXg] Member
eXg. DarkStarGTX "


Different post:

"ho-hum...it's nice that evga, msi, abit and epox have addressed the problem with bios updates...still no luck with mine. Any Albatron K8SLI users out there with the unknown pci device on cold boot-up problem? "


Clearly other users are finding the updates that you aren't.

Show me the EPoX fix. Link?

 

[Pariah]

No one will die from this compatibility issue, but are you looking at having an RMA denied based on this issue? Someone on this forum is.

No, my card works fine, though I don't have a NF4 board nor one of the affect X-Fi models. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Hardly. I simply have little tolerance for a manufacturer that charges over $100 for a sound card and does not bother to fully test it first.

Do you have any idea how many possible configurations there are for computers today? Along with this problem it has been well documented that not all NF4 boards are affected by the problem. Were you on Creative's Q/A teams during testing? Can you confirm that they didn't bother to test any NF4 boards for compatibility issues? How do you know that they didn't just happen to test configurations that didn't have this problem? How many properly working Nvidia based systems would Creative need to test to satisfy you that there is no issues with random setups?

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy
I just checked out the ABit links. THE BIOS IS A HACK AND NOT AN OFFICIAL ABIT BIOS.

Hardly a fix, and certainly not one that should be flashed. Warranty=VOID if flash goes bad to the point of no return.

Yeah, but so is the fix from Creative. Who cares so long as it works. This is a response to a question as to why the Creative fix is not made downloadable for everyone from thier site.

"Much like a bios flash (which is more of what this is really) you must access the card directly; which is not possible while inside of Windows. This means booting into a PCI compliant OS that allows low level hardware access, typically some newer flavor of DOS configured for this specific purpose. This is not an area that most customers would be comfortable in. Given the fact that if the flash goes improperly you can end up with a very dead card that you cannot flash back; it is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

Also, since the flash itself is a workaround and not a fix (the fix for the problem will be provided with Bios updates for your motherboard) it is not an update that everyone should install. By having them contact Technical Support and sending the card in, it allows us to make sure that only those that need it are having the flash done. The flash won't affect performance or change the way the card works, but if it were publicly available we could end up with a lot of cases of cards being misflashed where they didn't even need the flash to begin with.

Jeremy

Forum Moderator
Creative Labs"

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Pariah

No one will die from this compatibility issue, but are you looking at having an RMA denied based on this issue? Someone on this forum is.

No, my card works fine, though I don't have a NF4 board nor one of the affect X-Fi models. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Hardly. I simply have little tolerance for a manufacturer that charges over $100 for a sound card and does not bother to fully test it first.

Do you have any idea how many possible configurations there are for computers today? Along with this problem it has been well documented that not all NF4 boards are affected by the problem. Were you on Creative's Q/A teams during testing? Can you confirm that they didn't bother to test any NF4 boards for compatibility issues? How do you know that they didn't just happen to test configurations that didn't have this problem? How many properly working Nvidia based systems would Creative need to test to satisfy you that there is no issues with random setups?

By saying "not all nForce4 boards are affected by the problem" you have to be referring to the exception as opposed to the rule as it affected at least five manufacturers, three of them being Tier 1s.

If you BOTHER to fully read the Creative forum posts where this issue was first exposed, you would know that most people had troubleshot their systems to the point only having a video card and floppy drive in the system. This pretty much eliminates the "many possible configurations" being the problem theory.

No, I am not on the Creative QA Team. If I was, I either A. Would have been fired for speaking out too loudly for rank stupidity to get a product out the door too quickly or B. If I was managing the QA Team I would have fired them for rank stupidity for letting the product go into production status without having done due diligence.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Brian48

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy
I just checked out the ABit links. THE BIOS IS A HACK AND NOT AN OFFICIAL ABIT BIOS.

Hardly a fix, and certainly not one that should be flashed. Warranty=VOID if flash goes bad to the point of no return.

Yeah, but so is the fix from Creative. Who cares so long as it works. This is a response to a question as to why the Creative fix is not made downloadable for everyone from thier site.

"Much like a bios flash (which is more of what this is really) you must access the card directly; which is not possible while inside of Windows. This means booting into a PCI compliant OS that allows low level hardware access, typically some newer flavor of DOS configured for this specific purpose. This is not an area that most customers would be comfortable in. Given the fact that if the flash goes improperly you can end up with a very dead card that you cannot flash back; it is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

Also, since the flash itself is a workaround and not a fix (the fix for the problem will be provided with Bios updates for your motherboard) it is not an update that everyone should install. By having them contact Technical Support and sending the card in, it allows us to make sure that only those that need it are having the flash done. The flash won't affect performance or change the way the card works, but if it were publicly available we could end up with a lot of cases of cards being misflashed where they didn't even need the flash to begin with.

Jeremy

Forum Moderator
Creative Labs"

You guys just don't get it. The vast majority of people out there are not technically savvy. They would simply take the card back to Best Buy and write it off and look elsewhere. Some people might buy it from a place that does not allow a return as easily as Best Buy--and lose $120 to $150 in the process. You will not get a non risking-taking average computer user to flash a well-intentioned but pirated BIOS.

 

[Pariah]

This isn't the first incompatibility for NVidia chipsets either. You seem to have forgotten about NF3 boards having problems with NVidia's own video cards. If that's not a blackeye for poor Q/A then I don't know what is. They've also had SATA issues and memory incompatilibity issues as well. If anything, NVidia's chipsets have a longer list of problem than Creative's sound cards do.

The vast majority of people out there are not technically savvy.

And how many of these "not technically savvy people" would be using an NF4 board? How many BestBuy OEM's sell computers with with NF4 boards installed in them? Anyone using such board is either savvy enough to have installed it themselves or knows someone who is that installed it for them.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Pariah
This isn't the first incompatibility for NVidia chipsets either. You seem to have forgotten about NF3 boards having problems with NVidia's own video cards. If that's not a blackeye for poor Q/A then I don't know what is. They've also had SATA issues and memory incompatilibity issues as well. If anything, NVidia's chipsets have a longer list of problem than Creative's sound cards do.

The vast majority of people out there are not technically savvy.

And how many of these "not technically savvy people" would be using an NF4 board? How many BestBuy OEM's sell computers with with NF4 boards installed in them? Anyone using such board is either savvy enough to have installed it themselves or knows someone who is that installed it for them.

Stop trying to avoid the topic. I am not and would not excuse nVidia, VIA, or any other manufacturer from idiocy just because of what I am pointing out here about what Creative did.

Not everyone buys a PC from Best Buy. I also cannot say how many nF4 based PC's Best Buy is selling. I can tell you that I have built 27 nForce4 systems to date, and none of the buyers were technically savvy. Fortunately for them, I am. That is why I don't use Creative.

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy
Stop trying to avoid the topic. I am not and would not excuse nVidia, VIA, or any other manufacturer from idiocy just because of what I am pointing out here about what Creative did.

Not everyone buys a PC from Best Buy. I also cannot say how many nF4 based PC's Best Buy is selling. I can tell you that I have built 27 nForce4 systems to date, and none of the buyers were technically savvy. Fortunately for them, I am. That is why I don't use Creative.

You see that's just it. You don't know for sure this is Creatives fault, either partially or completely. You've already made up your mind and is ready to hang them no matter what new details turns up. Hack or not, the fact remains that fixes are on the way and the preferred route appears to be a MB BIOS fix.

That is why I don't use Creative.

This statement alone tells the whole story. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now it's obvious you're just trolling and you have your own agenda to push.

 

[dwb]

Boy howdy, what a lively debate!

I just wish the my card would have worked, out of the box, like it should have. I have spent much time resolving this issue that should have been worked out PRIOR to it being released. I feel like a BETA tester, not a consumer paying top dollar for a new product.

Creative and retailers should have been fair to us all, and isssued warnings of possible problems. In not doing so, they have pursued sales at the expense of their reputation.

dwb

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Brian48

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy
Stop trying to avoid the topic. I am not and would not excuse nVidia, VIA, or any other manufacturer from idiocy just because of what I am pointing out here about what Creative did.

Not everyone buys a PC from Best Buy. I also cannot say how many nF4 based PC's Best Buy is selling. I can tell you that I have built 27 nForce4 systems to date, and none of the buyers were technically savvy. Fortunately for them, I am. That is why I don't use Creative.

You see that's just it. You don't know for sure this is Creatives fault, either partially or completely. You've already made up your mind and is ready to hang them no matter what new details turns up. Hack or not, the fact remains that fixes are on the way and the preferred route appears to be a MB BIOS fix.

That is why I don't use Creative.

This statement alone tells the whole story. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now it's obvious you're just trolling and you have your own agenda to push.

PLEASE get off the high horse. This thread is not intended to be flame or troll thread. It is designed to give a heads up to those who are thinking of plunking down a lot of cash. From what i understand now, if you want an X-Fi non X-RAM verison, WAIT a while (weeks?) to be sure that you don't get an older one or press on your mobo manufacturer for a workaround from their end.

I am more willing to excuse nVidia and the mobo manufacturers for mess-ups than I am ANY add-in card creator like Creative, or any other. It has nothing to do with an agenda, it has to with hard facts from the past. Creative lied lied lied and didn't even try to fix a major issue behind the scenes with the Live! series. People REMEMBER this. Like me. I was stuck with FIVE of those worthless pieces of garbage. I promptly switched to TB Santa Cruz and the problems went away. The issue WAS mostly Creative's. There were people with Intel i815 chipsets that were also reporting the snap crackle pop issues as well--this was not isolated to VIA. It just happened to show up MORE on VIA because VIA had done some poor design work as well. At least VIA tried something to fix it. Creative didn't. I am giving credit to Creative this time around for owning up to at least a compatibility issue with their product. Kudos to them--there is hope.

I AM THE ONE who recommended the X-Fi to dwb. I thought it was safe. I was wrong. He might not be able to get his money back. Combine that with my previous not-so-Creative experiences and I hope you can understand why I am so pissed.

If I was just trolling, I would not have come into this thread with a raft of evidence that there was problem. If I was just trolling, I would have simply said "X-Fi sucks, so there" and left it at that. So don't go calling me a troll just because your favorite sound card manufacturer screwed up again.

 

[orangat]

Creative has a long history of screwups and never acknowledged any fault except for the 24-bit lie on the Audigy/Extigy lawsuit.
Their live! series hogged pci bandwidth caused unstable operation and slow performance.
There was a squeal of death symptom on some Dell computers with Live/Audigy.
Then a dll had conflicts with winamp and Creative feigned ignorance for years.

 

[NeonFlak]

EVGA has released an updated BIOS to fix the X-Fi problem, they actually released the bios on 9/30
http://www.evga.com/Support/Drivers/Default.asp

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: NeonFlak
EVGA has released an updated BIOS to fix the X-Fi problem, they actually released the bios on 9/30
http://www.evga.com/Support/Drivers/default.asp?switch=2

Thanks NeonFlak. So EVGA and MSI are safe bets for the X-Fi of any flavor at this point.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
I don't have a problem with my MSI K8N Platinum

Ok, judging by this post and the one in the other thread you are reading challenged. I said people with MSI boards are least likely to have issues.

I was trying to confirm to other people that MSI have the least problems with this soundcard. If you don't like my comments, you're welcome to ignore them.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Oh, one more thing. I am "equal opportunity" when it comes to blowing the whistle on bad PC parts or poorly done products in general. I came in this forum a month ago and started annihilating VIA for their horrendous ENVY24 drivers. Their idiocy continues unabated. I also came in and totally bashed the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe K8T890 based mobo they released early on and pointed out unresolvable compatibility issues with the GeForce6600 series of cards--and ASUS apparently release it knowing their was a problem. That mobo, if you can still find it, is currently in the running for one of the "Worst Mobos In History" Award. This sort of thing make me so angry that I will definitely blow the whistle. I hope I stopped the sale of a lot of ASUS K8N-E Deluxe boards, not because I want to hurt ASUS, but because I wanted others NOT to spend $145 on a mobo that probably would not work out of the box.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
I don't have a problem with my MSI K8N Platinum

Ok, judging by this post and the one in the other thread you are reading challenged. I said people with MSI boards are least likely to have issues.

I was trying to confirm to other people that MSI have the least problems with this soundcard. If you don't like my comments, you're welcome to ignore them.

My apologies to going off on you like that. I was more than a little pissed off. Sorry!

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
I don't have a problem with my MSI K8N Platinum

Ok, judging by this post and the one in the other thread you are reading challenged. I said people with MSI boards are least likely to have issues.

I was trying to confirm to other people that MSI have the least problems with this soundcard. If you don't like my comments, you're welcome to ignore them.

My apologies to going off on you like that. I was more than a little pissed off. Sorry!

np

Does this problem happend with Intel nForce4 chipsets as well? Just curious.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath

Originally posted by: ChiPCGuy

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
I don't have a problem with my MSI K8N Platinum

Ok, judging by this post and the one in the other thread you are reading challenged. I said people with MSI boards are least likely to have issues.

I was trying to confirm to other people that MSI have the least problems with this soundcard. If you don't like my comments, you're welcome to ignore them.

My apologies to going off on you like that. I was more than a little pissed off. Sorry!

np

Does this problem happend with Intel nForce4 chipsets as well? Just curious.

Good question. I don't know. Since the installed base on Intel nForce4 chipsets is really small compared to everything else, if it is an issue it is likely to be fixed by the time anyone gets around to actually running into it.....

 

[niggles]

what a bizarre thread. Most people aren't having problems, but it's titled as if it's a huge issue.
I'm running an Asrock 939 using the ULI chipset with no problems at all. In fact this is by far the biggest leap in audio technology I've ever seen, it's amazing. Too bad they didn't include a firewire connector but instead included a useless gameport connector. That is my only complaint with this card so far

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: niggles
what a bizarre thread. Most people aren't having problems, but it's titled as if it's a huge issue.
I'm running an Asrock 939 using the ULI chipset with no problems at all. In fact this is by far the biggest leap in audio technology I've ever seen, it's amazing. Too bad they didn't include a firewire connector but instead included a useless gameport connector. That is my only complaint with this card so far

Ok, so we can rule out the ASRock ULi based boards as one of the ones that are likely to have an issue. We don't have other ULi M1695 based boards to compare it to, though.

Anyone using a VIA K8T890 based mobo and not having issues?

niggles: I don't think Creative has sold millions of X-Fi's yet due to the rather steep price of entry even for their low end ones. If you look over at Creative's forums, there are hundreds of posts that indicate that this could have ended up a massive issue but fortunately there appear to be mobo BIOS workarounds and Creative has revved their cards, so it likely will not end up a problem on the scale of the old SBLive! series. It appears it was caught relatively early.

 

[Pariah]

ChiPCGuy, you're trolling. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are blinding pushing a a one-sided blinged agenda that everyone can see through while selectively remembering and forgetting events of the past. If you think Creative is the Son of Satan, you never should have recommended their products to anyone. That's your fault, and maybe you should be the one to refund that guy's money.

 

[ChiPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Pariah
ChiPCGuy, you're trolling. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are blinding pushing a a one-sided blinged agenda that everyone can see through while selectively remembering and forgetting events of the past. If you think Creative is the Son of Satan, you never should have recommended their products to anyone. That's your fault, and maybe you should be the one to refund that guy's money.

I don't think Creative is the "Son of Satan" as YOU said it. Call me a troll or whatever--I don't care. I don't see you trying to add any real value into this thread other than defend the indefensible.

I NEVER FORGET. I have been building PC's since 1989. Have you? When you get about 600 system builds under your belt, then you can go head to head with me. Until then, I will regulate your opinions to date to where I think they belong---but that would be too graphic for this forum.

And no, Creative or the retailer should be refunding dwb's money. Not me. I was willing to give Creative another chance by recommending one of their products and that they had actually produced a spectacular product and were departing from their lieing, cheating, market stifling, poor driving writing, lawsuit ridden past. They managed to create a spectacular sound card, but there are still some issues to be worked out. Not my fault for that!

 

[ChiPCGuy]

You know, what is funny is I was called a troll and attacked and flamed pretty nastily by the ASUS fan-boys when I started calling BS on the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe. Seems like when you are the first person to expose something, all of the fan-boys run out of the woodwork to attack.