Creative confirms Problem with Soundblaster and AMD Chipset

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gvblake22
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Creative confirms Problem with Soundblaster and AMD Chipset

Post by gvblake22 »

Found this in the news at AnandTech.com and figured it would be worth mentioning so people know about it since the NF4 chipset is arguably the most popular chipset for AMD's s939 platform and the X-Fi is Creative's newest and "best" sound card available that I'm sure many enthusiasts and audiophiles alike will consider.

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=25093
Creative Labs Forum Administrator wrote:A problem was identified on nForce4 based systems where the system ran into difficulties, related to the enumeration of the cards with 2MB (X-Fi XtremeMusic and X-Fi Platinum). This resulted in a variety of symptoms:

- The system may freeze or not boot

- The system may list multiple "Unknown PCI Device" entries and lead to a BSOD

- The system may reboot repeatedly (when "Automatically Restart" is enabled in the Advanced system settings)

Some motherboard manufacturers have already acknowledged this issue and released a BIOS update to resolve it. For systems where a BIOS update is not available we will be providing an alternative resolution in the form of a replacement card with modified firmware. Please contact Customer Support for your region for further details.
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Post by Apoptosis »

Rich,

You had any of those issues with your review sample?
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Post by LVCapo »

no, my problems are different...probably the buggiest drivers I've ever seen....the sound is pretty good....but about every 2-3 days I have to reinstall the drivers because the sound is gone or is choppy, or the system says the card is running in an unsupported mode?..... would I recommend the card? Probably not
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Post by gvblake22 »

capper5016 wrote:no, my problems are different...probably the buggiest drivers I've ever seen....the sound is pretty good....but about every 2-3 days I have to reinstall the drivers because the sound is gone or is choppy, or the system says the card is running in an unsupported mode?..... would I recommend the card? Probably not
Damn, that's a bummer man. Thanks for the heads up.
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Post by Yuriman »

I had thought it was only a rumor. Good to know.

@capper, I'll take that card off of your hands if you decide you don't like it anymore. :mrgreen:
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Post by LVCapo »

I'm still trying to figure out how I want to write this thing up.
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Post by killswitch83 »

review-wise, I would definitely make it a point to say that the drivers need to be fixed, if that's what is causing the incompatibility issues. I always thought they were good cards, but I guess even the best have a brain fart :rolleyes:
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Post by gvblake22 »

Ever since I have started learning about computers and hardware and I first heard of Creative and their soundcards, I have read that people are unhappy with their drivers. You might think that a company as big as Creative would be able to iron these issues out! :roll:
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Post by killswitch83 »

Yeah I know, and they could do something about the price some as well. I remember when the first Audigy ZS came out, the one with the 5.25" front controller, it was like 300 bucks. I don't know what the ZS 2 runs, but I'm pretty sure it runs around the same, but maybe a little cheaper now that it's been out awhile.
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Post by LVCapo »

For the past year now....anything associated with or bearing the name "FATALIY" has been overhyped and overpriced.
I definitely think that marketing gimmick has run its course.
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Post by gvblake22 »

capper5016 wrote:For the past year now....anything associated with or bearing the name "FATALIY" has been overhyped and overpriced.
I definitely think that marketing gimmick has run its course.
HAHAHA, omg, I totally agree.
But the really sad part of it is, if it wasn't working, then they wouldn't be doing it; so there are always people out there that will eat this stuff up, because they are more concerned with labels than anything else. :roll:
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Post by killswitch83 »

haha, yeah, the Fata1ity board will likely cause some "Fata1ities", rofl
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Post by LVCapo »

gvblake22 wrote:
capper5016 wrote:For the past year now....anything associated with or bearing the name "FATALIY" has been overhyped and overpriced.
I definitely think that marketing gimmick has run its course.
HAHAHA, omg, I totally agree.
But the really sad part of it is, if it wasn't working, then they wouldn't be doing it; so there are always people out there that will eat this stuff up, because they are more concerned with labels than anything else. :roll:
The marketing was 100% responsible for that. Instead of bringing together the best of everything, they sold out and simply went with what sold... and once people started realizing that most of the Fatality line was crap, it flopped badly.....seriously, if you were going to market a product toward high end gaming, would your first featured prodct be a motherboard based on an Intel processor? I think once people saw what was happening, they were really turned off by the line.... then couple that with ABIT's financial and product quality woes, and everything snowballed from there.
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Post by killswitch83 »

So they are going out of business?
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Post by LVCapo »

That rumor has been floating around for almost a year now, coupled with thwe stock scam and rumors of Foxconn among othwers buying them out.....at this point who knows, but until they get things sorted out and put out some quality products, its hard to recommend anything they make.
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Post by killswitch83 »

yeah, no joke; their R&D team brought it down on the company with inferior product, not to mention there were probably a few greedy execs in the bunch too. that's usually what happens to a company when they start to deteriorate in this manner, and not to forget poor marketing strategies. well, you're definitely right, they need to do better than the RX600 they let out earlier this year, not to mention the Fata1ity line, otherwise we may not be seeing much of anything from them period.
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Post by gvblake22 »

hehe, I just saw this banner add and it made me chuckle:
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Post by killswitch83 »

yay, like 15 bucks is gonna make up for the problem, lol....some people have a strange sense of marketing strategy :rolleyes:
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Post by JTanczos »

This isnt the first time there was a conflict between a chipset and Soundblaster card. When I got my SB Live! back in late '90s, it would loop the sound until I downloaded a patch to fix a bug with VIA chipsets. It was quite annoying to fix then and this seems all the worse. Hope they can fix it with a bios update. :-\

JT
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