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Creative confirms Problem with Soundblaster and AMD Chipset
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:08 am
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:04 pm
by Apoptosis
Rich,
You had any of those issues with your review sample?
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:18 pm
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
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:37 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:29 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:32 pm
by LVCapo
I'm still trying to figure out how I want to write this thing up.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:37 pm
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
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:44 pm
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!
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:53 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:30 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:32 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:52 pm
by killswitch83
haha, yeah, the Fata1ity board will likely cause some "Fata1ities", rofl
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:00 pm
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.
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:02 pm
by killswitch83
So they are going out of business?
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:31 pm
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.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:55 pm
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.
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:50 am
by gvblake22
hehe, I just saw this banner add and it made me chuckle:
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:11 am
by killswitch83
yay, like 15 bucks is gonna make up for the problem, lol....some people have a strange sense of marketing strategy
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:15 am
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