Problems with my Audigy and my Abit mobo.

[TazExprez]

Hi,

I am currently having problems with the second Audigy card that I have. Several months ago, in like March, I had to return my first Audigy card to Creative and the new one worked fine until August. Now I have to return it to Creative so that I can get another card. My mobo is the Abit KR7A-Raid. I was thinking that maybe it's some mobo issue, but I am not sure. I have another PC with an Abit KR7A non-raid board with an Audigy and have had no problems. This is the first sound card I have ever had that has given me so many problems. The problem I am having is that the software does not recognize the card, although Windows does.

Any opinions or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Wolfie]

I may be thinking way off here. But have you tried a different PCI slot? Possibly a IRQ issue? Just some ideas that I have anyways....

Wolfie

 

[TazExprez]

Yes, I have tried this before. My card is messed up though. Same thing happened to the card that I sent to Creative Labs. I wonder if it's my mobo messing up the cards, or something, since I have a similar setup in my other PC without any problems.

Thanks anyway.

 

[RanDum72]

The KR7A is known to corrupt the firmware of Audigy soundcards. I returned two Audigy's because of this. The third replacement went to my other PC whose sound card (Santa Cruz) went to the the KR7A. I have since sold the Abit board.

 

[TazExprez]

Thanks man. I guess my third card will not go into this PC. What would be a good replacement mobo for this PC?

By the way, the Audigy in my other PC with the the KR7A non-raid board is acting funny, so I may ditch the Abit board on that PC too.

 

[RanDum72]

A sure sign that the firmware is trashed is when you go to sound and audio devices under control panel. If the device is listed as 'emuk' or something like that instead of SB Audigy audio, then your Audigy is gone.

As for a mobo replacement, check out the latest KT333/400 offering from Epox and Asus. You can also wait for the nforce2 or go for nforce1 mobos and sell that Audigy since the nforce sound is just as good.

 

[oddeirik]

I have the same problems with the same mobo as well. My third Audigy just died. I've talked to Creative Support several times, and they've been nice and sent me a replacement card 2 times, but this time, they wouldn't do so, untill they've tested the one I have. I tried telling them that there was major issues with that motherboard and the Audigy, but the guy I spoke with only told me to wait for an e-mail which would tell me how to fix this problem. I very much doubt anything will help. I guess I should start looking for a new sound card. I'm tired of all the problems with the Audigy...

 

[dajo]

Another problematic post regarding Creative sound cards! There are so many...

I will never buy Creative sound card because I've had so many problems with them. I use Philips Acoustic Edge and Turtle Beach Santa Cruz because they sound great and never give me any problems. I've installed Santa Cruz cards on about four systems now and never had a single problem.

I'm not a audiophile and I don't know what the Audigy card has that these other don't, but I know Creative sound cards in general as I've spent hundreds of hours trying to figure out why they suddenly stopped working one day.

I don't mean to sound really negative, but, like I said, I'll never buy another Creative sound card.

Just MHO.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: dajo
Another problematic post regarding Creative sound cards! There are so many...

I will never buy Creative sound card because I've had so many problems with them. I use Philips Acoustic Edge and Turtle Beach Santa Cruz because they sound great and never give me any problems. I've installed Santa Cruz cards on about four systems now and never had a single problem.

I'm not a audiophile and I don't know what the Audigy card has that these other don't, but I know Creative sound cards in general as I've spent hundreds of hours trying to figure out why they suddenly stopped working one day.

I don't mean to sound really negative, but, like I said, I'll never buy another Creative sound card.

Just MHO.

I agree, I will not use Creative as I like stability and good drivers.

Also how does the Philips Acoustic Edge compare to the Santa Cruz or any other card out there.

Thanks

 

[TazExprez]

Thanks for all of your responses guys. I will send this card back to Creative and I will get a new mobo and see what happens. If the next card gets messed up with the other mobo I will break it into pieces and burn it.

 

[CaptnKirk]

I had nightmares installing a Philips Rhythmic Edge into an ABIT KR7-133, it took about 8 hours to install drivers from CD's, update from Website, and get WinXP to recognize and properly configue the sound card. I can't say I was thrilled with my experience with Philips.

Creative Labs, on the other hand gave me minimal installation glitches, but they do get sloppy and late on their Drivers. It took almost 9 months for them to get the PC-Cam 600 driver to properly configure for use with WinXP - and they aren't done yet.

Only thing I've seen that is a potential problem with Creative Labs soundcards in ABIT is an IRQ conflict if it's installed in PCI slot 5, which is shared with the RAID, so you just put it in PCI-4 and either use the port 5 for a USB bracket mount or the Gameport mount from the sound card.

ATI's Radeon series is another mess when it comes to drivers, as you sometimes have to download 2 or three packages to get the proper configuration. When their 'Catalyst'
driver came out, they had to put an immediate fix out to correct the mess they released.

So many times a good motherboard gets the blame when the issue of malfunction is in the driver from the add-on component.

(Merit Badge)

 

[Viperoni]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
I had nightmares installing a Philips Rhythmic Edge into an ABIT KR7-133, it took about 8 hours to install drivers from CD's, update from Website, and get WinXP to recognize and properly configue the sound card. I can't say I was thrilled with my experience with Philips.

Creative Labs, on the other hand gave me minimal installation glitches, but they do get sloppy and late on their Drivers. It took almost 9 months for them to get the PC-Cam 600 driver to properly configure for use with WinXP - and they aren't done yet.

Only thing I've seen that is a potential problem with Creative Labs soundcards in ABIT is an IRQ conflict if it's installed in PCI slot 5, which is shared with the RAID, so you just put it in PCI-4 and either use the port 5 for a USB bracket mount or the Gameport mount from the sound card.

ATI's Radeon series is another mess when it comes to drivers, as you sometimes have to download 2 or three packages to get the proper configuration. When their 'Catalyst'
driver came out, they had to put an immediate fix out to correct the mess they released.

So many times a good motherboard gets the blame when the issue of malfunction is in the driver from the add-on component.

(Merit Badge)

Installed win2k, installed via 4in1's, ran Rhythmic Edge driver package, ran ATI's catalyst driver package, enjoyed stability ever since
Never had a problem with either one, or installing a SB Live Value in my dads kt7-raid (the very first one, kt133) machine.

 

[Mem]

Another problematic post regarding Creative sound cards! There are so many...

I will never buy Creative sound card because I've had so many problems with them. I use Philips Acoustic Edge and Turtle Beach Santa Cruz because they sound great and never give me any problems. I've installed Santa Cruz cards on about four systems now and never had a single problem.

I'm not a audiophile and I don't know what the Audigy card has that these other don't, but I know Creative sound cards in general as I've spent hundreds of hours trying to figure out why they suddenly stopped working one day.

I don't mean to sound really negative, but, like I said, I'll never buy another Creative sound card.

Just MHO.

I`ve been using Creative sound cards for last 8 years with no problems,infact my one year old Audigy and Epox 8KHA+ board(VIA KT 266A) are working great,however there will always be some people that`ll have problems while others don`t.It does sound like an Abit motherboard issue with the Audigy so all I can really say is best way to install Creative`s drivers is with clean install of OS,I would use a PCI slot that does not share an IRQ with another PCI slot,I always disable onboard sound,midi port and game port address in BIOS before I install the sound card.

In the end if that does not work there`re plenty of other good sound cards to choose from.
Good luck.

 

[RanDum72]

This problem has been known to happen on other KT266A mobos as well, like MSI. Incidentally, the Epox 8KHA+ maybe the only KT266A board that has no problems. I had the 8KHA+ before and it has no problems with the Audigy. It also had no problems with GF3/GF4 and infinite loop (after a BIOS update) during a time when most KT266A are having fits. I kinda missed that board (its now with my brother away on school).

 

[CaptnKirk]

Point in case with the Creative Labs, Philips, and ATI driver issues is for WinXP O/S - they did NOT get their drivers compliant to the Microsoft Laboratories requirements at the XP release, and were deliquent on follow-up to certifing their drivers.
Win2K didn't have the same level of non-conformance, and some of those drivers would 'Kind-of-Work' in XP.

I got the stuff running, but it wasn't the Motherboards fault or Windows XP fault - it was the add on component driver's problem.