scream of death follow up

[sindustrial777]

Has anyone gotten the infamous creative sound blaster audigy "scream of death" (specifically on the 2Zs cause thats what i have) while using speakers and not a heaset, just wonering if it happens with all the sound input or if maybe its the heaset. For those of you who have no idea what i'm talking about, dont worry, you probably therefore can't answer my question:lick:

Thanks for your support

 

[LordOfLA]

the scream of death is a pci bus issue. it will happen regardless of what you are using to hear the cards output.

If you are getting scream of death (and resultant hard-locked pc) do yourself a favour and get an x-fi

 

[Mastershakes]

the scream of death is a pci bus issue. it will happen regardless of what you are using to hear the cards output.

If you are getting scream of death (and resultant hard-locked pc) do yourself a favour and get an x-fi

Seconded. Though I have reduced the frequency of this anomaly.

I used Driver Cleaner to wipe Creative off the face of my PC. Restarted after removing the sound card from Device Manager.

It wanted drivers on startup, I pointed it to some extracted, 2002 drivers. Then I ran the web update, creative drivers released 1/26/06. It seems since then, I have no scream of death.

of course, it being a PCI bus issue - it may just be that my mobo is cooperative at this time.... fingers crossed. Tired of losing progress in GTA San Andreas.

 

[sindustrial777]

sucky thing is i just got the audigy, anyone know if i can get a refund creative.com is a bit confusing and it looks like i may be stuck with just a replacement or repair

 

[Petros]

I don't reward Creative with another purchase of their products after they have proven lackluster (to put it lightly) driver support and some of the most infuriating computer problems I've ever had. People keep coming back to them like a battered wife, opening their wallets wide while Creative laughs all the way to the bank.

The Audigy 2 Platinum I payed $160 for should not have problems like they were sold by Billy-Joe's Discount Sound Thingamabobs and Taxidermy.

Screams of death? They don't exist on my stop-gap onboard 7.1. BSODS? Freezes? Nope. After using creative for the last six years, I discovered that those things don't have to be tolerated to have good sound.

 

[Aprox]

I think with Creative its hit and miss, I have been lucky to never have a problem with them. I have owned the Audigy 1 and 2 and now an X-Fi. I even bought an "off brand" Sound card trying to discover greener pastures.... and was very disapointed.

So I say just buy an X-Fi and be done with it. I am extreamly happy with it. They have updated the Software since release as well as the hardware. When I bought my X-Fi it had a heatsink on the card itself and a newer firmware.

 

[sindustrial777]

i agree with petros in the fact that creative shouldnt get more of my money because they cant get their act together but with all the game support and extras that creative has to offer its almost like a monopoly, take it or leave it when it comes to sound cards and creative. I guess ill check into the x-fi but i may just go back to mobo till then because for even as good as it sounds when its working, my audigy 2 Zs just aint worth the trouble it causes me. I guess x-fi seems to be the only solution. Thanks for your support

 

[Petros]

I'll monitor their forums and give them (yet) another chance if it appears that they've done things right.

 

[LordOfLA]

To be perfectly honest, this anti-creative and "they can't do jack" mentality people have of Creative is stupid. I'd like to see anyone of those complaing make a superior product with superior drivers.

There was the kX project - but they're drivers were and still are woefully lacking.

The scream of death is an intermittant fault that Creative can't reproduce because of its randomness as to when and why it occurs (I believe in they 3-5 years of testing for the issue in their pci audio cards from live to audigy 4 they've only been able to reproduce it once which doesnt lend to diagnosis and testing all that well).

The best PC audio product available at the moment comes from creative. Its called the X-fi. Either you buy that, a previous creative card model or you go for the poor alternaives, this is reinforced even more when you are a gamer.

Pro audio is still ruled by E-mu last I looked for pc add-in cards. Thats creative tech too. E-mu designed the X-fi chip. Creative own's E-mu.

 

[sindustrial777]

Well hey if creatives wants the SOD they can just stop by my house anytime

 

[Steevo]

To be perfectly honest, this anti-creative and "they can't do jack" mentality people have of Creative is stupid. I'd like to see anyone of those complaing make a superior product with superior drivers.

There was the kX project - but they're drivers were and still are woefully lacking.

The scream of death is an intermittant fault that Creative can't reproduce because of its randomness as to when and why it occurs (I believe in they 3-5 years of testing for the issue in their pci audio cards from live to audigy 4 they've only been able to reproduce it once which doesnt lend to diagnosis and testing all that well).

The best PC audio product available at the moment comes from creative. Its called the X-fi. Either you buy that, a previous creative card model or you go for the poor alternaives, this is reinforced even more when you are a gamer.

Pro audio is still ruled by E-mu last I looked for pc add-in cards. Thats creative tech too. E-mu designed the X-fi chip. Creative own's E-mu.

Fan boy. :laugh:


No doubt that they have one of the best cards out there. But, there is still turtle beach.

 

[LordOfLA]

Not a fan boy, but I dont tolerate people rabildy critisicing a product because it doesnt work for them. Sure people have problems with creative sound cards, but how many compared to the total size of creatives install base for each of their seperate add-in audio cards?

People have issues with other hardware conflicts. You dont see the same of rabid screaming about that as you do with creative's products.

If you have problem with a product - sure shout about it - if enough people hear about the issue and chime in something might get done. But I looked long and hard on the screech of death, its just so rare and so hard to reproduce it will be hard to fix.

Nobody yet has shown me an add-in audio card superior to a creative or E-mu device yet either.

 

[LeeJend]

I find it hard to beleive they can't reproduce the problem. My SBlive does it after about 45 minutes of playing UT2004 and has consistently for years.

They can't reproduce it is lawyer talk for:

"We are aware of the design deficiency in our products and there is no solution that can be implemented without bankrupting us. Therefore we are going to make beleive the problem is not there and will continue to sell defective product. BTW We will also not allow you to upgrade to a working verison of our product because everybody with one of our defective cards would want to do the same thing and the company couldn't afford our $million bonuses."

ATI is now doing this too. I don't like this developing pattern and the only way to stop it is for people to complain about it on every forum they can find until the cost of bad press outweighs the cost of fixing product.

RANT ON!

 

[Petros]

"...I dont tolerate people rabildy critisicing a product because it doesnt work for them...You dont see the same of rabid screaming about that as you do with creative's products."

I'm not rabidly anti-Creative really, and I'm not screaming, and the main reason Creative bothers me is not necessarily because of their products' inferiority. There's no need to flame me and use hyperbole to portray me as something I'm not. And screams of death aren't the only reason to criticize them. Even when their drivers are working fine, there are further problems that directly relate to Creative as a company and not their products. Read on.

Send an email to their tech support asking where you can download their entire software suite for the Audigy series and you'll see what I mean. It took them weeks to send me back a canned answer which basically said "you can't download it anywhere". You can download and install their driver, sure, but when you download any of the add on programs (EAX Control Panel, Speaker Settings, etc.) it says "Compatible hardware was not found on this system." So what is the point of letting me download the program if it's not going to install to my computer? That problem is very reproducible. I resorted to the KX driver after I lost my CD just to have full functionality.

Honestly, I haven't tried the X-Fi yet, but I read this thread, did some research on it (a shining and throrough review is on Tom's Hardware btw). It appears to be an impressive product, for sure; definitely the first true "next gen" sound card ever. While it still isn't going to fix the two-weeks-til-you-get-your-canned-answer business, maybe it won't have problems that the Audigy has.

Or maybe it will. I guess when I feel that I have enough money where I feel I can take a $120-$400 crapshoot, I'll probably plunk down the money yet again. I'm not going to expect much because of my past experiences. By the way, it's frustrating that Creative has gotten the market so cornered that their customers can say that and still breathlessly put out for them.

Like I said, we'll see. If I'm pleased with the product and service I get--and I'm not required to watch the driver CD like it was my own son--I'll change my mind. Call me crazy, but I expect a $160 sound card to sound far better than a $28 dollar one and have less problems, not the other way around as my experience has been.

Edit: Also, I have occasional and unbearable audio crackling problems. Creative defenders told me that it's the audio codec causing the problem, not the card. So I took twenty seconds, changed the sound device to my onboard sound, plugged my speakers into it, and got no crackling. So much for the codec being the problem. Notice I didn't call them rabid screamers, because they didn't. Experiencing a problem with Creative and expressing my concern neither means that I am screaming nor that I have rabies. Trust me, I've had to deal with your kind of accusatory creative defenders before. After the injury of a product that doesn't work right, it's no fun to have insult heaped on those of us who got screwed by the big C.

 

[LordOfLA]

FYI I bouhgt an x-fi after falling foul of the scream of death problem myself and knowing that creative wasnt going to be any help at all.

If you get crackling on creative souond card you need to do a few things. relocate it to a different pci slot, check your speakers are firmly plugged in and if you have speakers where you are able - check the cables with a meter of some kind to check they are not damaged.

If those steps fail to remove the crackling its time to replace your card.

You dont buy creative for their after-sales support. You buy them because they make the best gaming/home entertainment audio cards available. Their subsidiary E-mu last time I checked made the best pro-audio pc audio input cards available. Admittedly howwever its been a few years since I checked on pro-audio.

 

[Steevo]

Truly words of a buggered reality engune.



What you are suggesting is like buying a performance car with no warranty, no service, and when the fanbelt starts to squeal, buying another.

 

[LordOfLA]

My cards come with a 12 month warranty. Ijust have to send it back to thr retailer and get it swapped, bu when I got my squeal of dath the x-fi was only 4 weeks away so I made do with onboard sound for a month and gave theaudigy2 to my brother who hasnt had a single issue with it.

 

[Steevo]

And the 3% performance gain for $150 was better than buying a new CPU and not having any squeal of death, ever?

 

[LordOfLA]

It was never a cpu issue. its a pci bus issue. And while I had a new mainboard, I didnt have the pci-express vga card to go with it. Also the X-fi was £99 so I wasn't all that bothered about it. I wanted an X-fi anyway.

If I want performance gain I buy a faster cpu.