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Topic: Audigy 2 (Read 4361 times) previous topic - next topic
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Audigy 2

I've got an Audigy 2 Platinum and it causes some damned problems:

I changed the mainboard two weeks ago to a Elitegroup K7S5A with SDRam. I cannot remember why, but I reinstalled the drivers of the soundcard. I think there had been a software problem.

Each time I try to reinstall the soundcard, my dear pc tells me "acces denied" (I dunno if the translation is totally correct, in German it's "Zugriff verweigert") after having copied the driver files on the harddisk.

I have deactivated the onboard soundcard, and taken out all other PCI cards (Modem and LAN-card) but this had no effect on my problem...

The acces denied also appears after having tried to install the Game Port.

Please help!

fragtal
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #1 –
Quote
I changed the mainboard two weeks ago to a Elitegroup K7S5A with SDRam.


What would possess you to do a thing like that!? I sure hope to god that you are not using an AMD T-Bird between about 1000mhz and 1400mhz. I had one of those god forsaken boards (a rev. 4) that causes memory / data corruption when used with a fast T-Bird processor. Rev 0-2 should be alright, but  rev. 3 - 6?? and maybe above have data corruption / CMOS memory lost / instability issues. With my AMD T-Bird 1400, the system locked and then corrupted my C:\windows dir  on more than one occasion. What processor are you using? I suggest that you go to http://www.memtest86.com/ and test your memory with the program on that page. If you get errors, I would suggest that you try to lower your memory timings and see if things improve. If they don't, return the board!


(PS - The SB-Live driver install would crash constantly on my K7S5A board. Weirdly, when I returned it and got a Shuttle AK31 v3.1 board, all the problems went away  )

Edit - Wound changed to would 

Audigy 2

Reply #2 –
first of all: thx for your answer.

I've got an Ahtlon XP 1700+, which means 1466MHz. But I'm running it @ 1100MHz cause I had some fu****' trouble: The PC restarted, restarted and sometimes even restarted and so on...  (But I'm quite unsure whether it has something to do with the CPU speed setting...).

All went well with my K7S5A until I changed my tower. The monitor didn't show any image... And so I changed the mainboard, after checking, that all other components didn't cause this. So I've got a new K7S5A which worked well for a week. Then, I reinstalled, better: I tried to reinstall my soundcard, and now it that's the point I have reached...

I'll test my mem

fragtal
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #3 –
Quote
I've got an Ahtlon XP 1700+, which means 1466MHz. But I'm running it @ 1100MHz cause I had some fu****' trouble: The PC restarted, restarted and sometimes even restarted and so on...  (But I'm quite unsure whether it has something to do with the CPU speed setting...).


Is this with the K7S5A? Sounds like something the K7S5A would do  . Athlon XP's were supposedly un-effected by the board's bug (although Elitegroup never admitted that there was a bug...), but the board is very picky about power supplies (It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?) The restarting sounds like a power supply or heat issue (or the K7S5A's crappiness, you can just never be sure - can you tell I'm bitter?  B) ) I recommend that you go to http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi and create an account - it is the best source of K7S5A info on the net - it helped me loads back in the day. Hope this helps.

P.S. - If you make an account on the above board, I suggest that you search for posts made by a member named MrAthlon, if they have not been deleted - it would make for an interesting read  . It was a very hot topic back in the day, and the board censored like crazy to cover their ass, going so far as to ban the name MrAthlon when you typed it into a reply! I can send you the MrAthlon fix for the problem if you would like (although you have to be handy with a soldering iron  ) The board is still a great source of info regardless.

Audigy 2

Reply #4 –
Quote
The restarting sounds like a power supply or heat issue (or the K7S5A's crappiness, you can just never be sure - can you tell I'm bitter?  B) )

I suppose it is not a heat problem because I'm running four cooler for my tower, one for the power supply, one on the cpu and another one on the gpu. The system tempreature is constant around 25°C and the cpu is 35°C cold! That is quite cool I think. In my ancient tower the system temp was about 40°C and the CPU always 45 or more degrees.

I'm having a three year old powersupply with only 200Watts. This might be the reason.?? But my system worked fine for two months! and now it starts working fine again, without restarting all the time, even if I can't install my Audigy 2. If the Athlon 64 would be released now, I'd buy one as I had planned and the problem would be solved.

fragtal
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #5 –
Quote
I'm having a three year old powersupply with only 200Watts. This might be the reason.??


Oh my god, your system runs on only 200 watts!? With 4 fans! Yes, that sounds like the problem. I'm running 350 watts and thinking of upgrading. I dont know if its the reason that your audigy wont install, but I SERIOUSLY recommend that you spend some money and get a 350+ watt power supply. Antec's True Power PS units make a great choice. If I were you, before I spent any more time worrying about hardware, I would try to re-install windows (you are using windows?) If you have a spare HD lying around (I do  ) try doing a clean install on that HD and try to install the drivers. You might want to go to creative's website and see if they have updated drivers. Where is the access denied message occuring? It might be an IRQ / DMA conflict, so try sticking the card into a different PCI slot.

Audigy 2

Reply #6 –
I am quite confused, because my system worked well for two months WITHOUT any crashes or (unwanted) reboots.

Can somebody else confirm the need of a more powerful powersuply?
(it is not that I don't trust you, Viper, but I don't like the idea of spending money on something redundant )

If I change the powersupply, I'd like to get one that is very silent but also has a fan that is able to keep it cool. Does somebody know such a thing that is available in Europe (in Germany would be best )?

I've already tested the soundcard in all PCI slots ... nothing changed, so: no IRQ/ DMA conflict

Tomorrow, (if I've some time left, beside Unreal 2! ) I'll try to reinstall it quickly just for checking if the problem goes with the soundcard or the mainboard.

I'm now downloading new drivers for the beloved Audigy 2. They are one months younger than the "old" ones.

fragtal
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #7 –
I just installed a amd 1700 xp for a friend with a kt266 mobo and geforce 4mx.  Everything went fine til I realized he had a 235 watt power supply, well under the recommended 300+ (plus the gf4 sucks alot of juice).  Problems manifested right away: the system randomly wouldn't POST, and windows 98 and win2k died during the installs.  He is now bitching at me to fix the problem because he refuses to admit the 235 w is too weak a PS.

Bottom line, if you have a 1ghz+ processor, + alot of components (which you obviously do fragtal, with fans and such), you need a 350-400 w powersupply to make sure everything gets adequate power.  I personally own a Enermax 400w PS (was around $50 cdn), and my p4 1.6 ghz @ 2.12 ghz + gf4 is rock-solid.

Audigy 2

Reply #8 –
You should always check software for problems before you start to replace hardware. Where is the error message? Is it when Windows is starting? Is it when you are installing the drivers in Windows? Or are you even using windows (You still have not said your OS)? An exact error message / screenshot? would help me a lot (If I can get past the German!) I'm just shooting in the dark right now. Are you using a driver install program, or are you installing the drivers from the system tab in the Windows control panel (I'm assuming you have Windows 98 - XP) Would it be possible for you to do a fresh install of the OS you have? Just a personal example - Once upon a time certain videos integrated into games (Rogue Sphere, Viper Racing) would not play correctly / had stuttering sound / jerked around with my Celeron 400@450mhz, Asus GF2 GTS video card and VIA Apollo Pro+ Motherboard. At first, I thought it was a driver issue, or an issue with my ancient 3 year old install of Windows 98SE. To test if this was the case, I got the newest drivers and did a fresh install of Win98 on a second hard drive, so i wouldn't lose all my work on my real install of windows. Even with the fresh install and the newest video / sound card drivers, the problem persisted. I tried different sound cards (I had an ISA card in another comp), but that would not fix the problem. Latency timings in the BIOS did not help either. It was not a DMA / IRQ issue either, because I tried removing other parts and made sure nothing was conflicting. To make a long story short, I found a small setting in the BIOS named "Initialize first display" with the options of AGP and PCI. Because my new card was an AGP card, I had set this to AGP and never thought twice about it (All it is supposed to do is pick which display to initialize first if you have more than one video card in the computer - AGP was the "RIGHT" setting for my new card.) By changing it back to PCI, all the stuttering disappeared    . Sometimes the biggest problems can come from the smallest things. The best way for you to troubleshoot driver install issues is to take the variable of a crappy OS install out of the picture. Of course, the new drivers you DL'd could fix everything, and I could have wasted 10min of my life writing this long ass post / story  . As I said, an exact error message would help me out.

Audigy 2

Reply #9 –
I've got Windows XP (sorry for not answering at once.. )

The problems I get with installing my soundcard occure when I choose the windows installer, after the drivers are copied on the system. Then I get a simple "acces denied". The same message appears after an install attempt of the game port. When I try to install the soundcard via the Creative install program everything works fine, UNTIL the end, when I suddenly get the message that my dear system cannot detect any soundcard (no Audigy 2) .
I hope that helped for your comprehension of the problem...

One ass thing makes me think that I shouldn't blame the soundcard but the motherboard is that today, I had the same problem as I already had described: I push the power switch and I can hear the fans starting, the hard disk do start too, but the screen stays deeply black (that's not really true, it announces that there is no input signal.. ) And the regular beep doesn't sound as it does on every system boot. I had the same problem with my ancient Athlon 600 with a Gigabyte GA7IX board which slowly died over one year. It always restarted until I deactivated the USB ports, then there were other sings indicating disfunctions of the mainboard. I had the same powersupply as now...

I took this chance to check whether the power supply is to blame and went to the PC of my father who has got a 250W powersupply (yes, it's not much, but it is more than my crummy 200W, which actually worked fine on this system for two months ) But this didn't change the things . Conclusion: the powersupply is not guilty!

Then when the PC decided to run again I got this message after he had checked all the installed drives:
Quote
CMOS check sum bad

and

Wrong memory size (something like this, I've forgotten the contet of the original message)

I changed the slot of my one and only 256SDRAM and, oh miracle, the system started.

This evening I'll try to install a new system on my other harddisk, just for testing...

fragtal

PS: On Hydrogen Audio you never waste your time!
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #10 –
I've now installed Windows again on another harddrive:

This time I only installed the Audigy 2 card, not the Platinum thing. and it worked...

Under my regular Windows it also works now, with the old drivers, when I only install the Audigy 2 without Platinum. I'll test the Platinum thing later this evening and will report as soon I got new results.
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #11 –
Quote
Then when the PC decided to run again I got this message after he had checked all the installed drives: "CMOS check sum bad" and "Wrong memory size" (something like this, I've forgotten the contet of the original message)


CMOS check sum thing is a classic problem with the K7S5A - It happens sometimes when you unplug it for a while, and sometimes it happens all by itself  . There is lots of talk about it on the message board I mentioned. I'm glad that you got the drivers to install, and I’m glad that the PS is not "guilty"  . One thing you might try - log in as administrator, or if you already are, create another administrative account and log into that. I usually log into a secondary admin account by default, and one time when I was trying to install drivers under that account (this was using Windows 2000 SP2 btw...) the install would fail every time with a message "driver installation failed." No matter how many times I restarted the computer, the same problem would occur. Finally, I logged off the secondary account and logged in as the actual "Administrator," and all of a sudden all the drivers installed just fine. Then when I logged off as Administrator and back into my secondary account, driver installs wound work again on the secondary account      . Beats me what the problem was, but it's never happened again.

Audigy 2

Reply #12 –
Yes, "access denied" sounds like a Windows XP login (=user name) not having the right to install drivers.

Audigy 2

Reply #13 –
Quote
Yes, "access denied" sounds like a Windows XP login (=user name) not having the right to install drivers.

I had thought about that before your postings, but I've only installed one account: the admin account...

@viper
thanks a lot for your support!

fragtal
I love the moderators.

Audigy 2

Reply #14 –
Did everything work out alright for you?

Audigy 2

Reply #15 –
Personal experience with the K7S5A which I'm using as my motherboard for my system now - its rock solid frickin stable, and I have experienced NO fatal BSODs ever since I switched my faulty RAM stick.

Don't diss the K7S5A... a great support group is available here that doesn't need registration. The K7S5A has 2 known problems that I can remember - sudden loss of CMOS settings and the lack of proper chipset cooling.

Try checking your RAM though. IMHO, RAM most probably would be the cause of your problem, especially seeing how after you moved your stick of RAM, the system would boot. XP is pretty tolerant of bad memory, but its stability will plunge to pre-Win95 levels while working with it.

Audigy 2

Reply #16 –
If you were one of the lucky ones who got a good K7S5A, that?s great. What processor are you running? If you are not running a T-Bird Athlon / Rev 3-6 board, then be quiet. Im not just speaking out my ass, cause I owned one of those pieces of shit. They are supposed to be compatible with all Athlons, and when I bought mine, the new revisions (ones such as the thoroughbred line ex... 1700XP) were just coming out. I have a document saved that I can send you showing how to perform the fix for a bad resister value present on rev 3-6, and maybe later revisions. The fact that Elitegroup covered their ass and threatened to sue people who spoke out about their shitty product is why you don't hear much about it. Because the old T-Birds were being phased out, ECS just said that the K7S5A was no longer considered compatible with T-Birds, and AMD updated their compatibility info on their page (If you go to AMD's website, the K7S5A is not listed as compatible with older T-Bird processors, yet it is on ECS's website - coincidence?) What I say is out of my own experience. I would love to know what revision board you are using (Its listed on a sticker located on the PCB, it will say rev .... on a sticker.) I would also love for you to go to memtest86.com and run the program on your computer. I would bet that it would not run 1 pass without errors. Go DL Prime95 (A benchmarking prog) and run it on your system - how long will it run before failing? 4-5 hours is all mine could do before dying, yet my Shuttle AK31 can go for days at a time with the same memory / processor / heatsink / powersupply.

Edit: Here are the documents that I referred to -

MrAthlon Resister Fix Guide - Explains the Problem & Cause

AMD Tech Bulletin - Reason ECS Changed Resister Value / Cause of Problem

To download, you need to right click on the links and select "Save Target As..." and then rename the files to .pdf instead of .mpc - Angelfire is Horrible.

Edit2 - Example of censorship on OCWorkbench.com - Pic Of Censorship - Right Click & select "Save Target As..."

Edit3 - As I suspected, my rl0802 account was shortly banned and my post deleted  ! But the picture lives on as proof - this is too much like Big Brother for my liking. The same was done with all the MrAthlon findings. Sigh, god forbid this forum ever comes to this.

Audigy 2

Reply #17 –
Quote
Did everything work out alright for you?

Yep! and Thanks!

Now I was even able to install a newer version of the Audigy 2 drivers! The times I tried doing this before, I always got the message that I have .vxd drivers installed but the update only works with .wdm drivers...

btw. censorship sucks!

fragtal
I love the moderators.