Sound Blaster Z & Zx Issues...

Sorry for the long post, but I'm having issues and Audio is important to me. Not just for gaming, but Music, and Movies as well....

I just built a new rig (specs below) and cannot for the life of me get this Sound Blaster Z & Zx working correctly. I am getting what appears to be popping and crackling with Windows sounds' like the "Ding" etc... and in Music/Movies, it sounds like a robot is talking binary to me. If I unplug my headphone/speaker jack about 3/4 of the way - the issue corrects itself and the sound is clear.

Now here is the interesting part.

I thought that just the Zx was maybe broken... So I borrowed a Sound Blaster Z from my Dad's machine and it is acting the same exact way in my machine (Works fine in his machine), conversely, the Zx that acts up in my machine, works perfectly in his.

Below are my specs and trouble shooting steps... Audio Experts! any help is appreciated!!! Please!

Specs: (All at stock/default speeds for testing and troubleshooting
i7 4790k
32GB DDR3 2133
ASUS Maximus VII Hero (Z97)
Radeon R9 290x
Samsung 840 Pro
Windows 8.1 Pro

Dads Specs:
i5 860
4GB DDR3 1600
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD5
Radeon 7770
Samsung 840 Evo
Windows 7 Pro

My Troubleshooting steps:
Tried 2 different sound cards (Sounblaster Z and Zx)
Moved both Sound Cards to every PCIe 1x and 4x slot
Tried Different 2 sets of Head Phones and 1 set of Speakers
Plugged output into every jack, including front case audio port
- All have the same result

My OnBoard Realtek 1150 (SupremeFX II) works just fine, as advertised. But I do not want to use onboard audio as my final solution.

The only thing I can hypothesize is, Im getting weird jitter/EMI to my PCIe ports and my Mobo Is bad - Or, Windows 8.1 Drivers for creative suck... Dads Machine is running Win 7 and seems to be fine.

Any thoughts, comments, help is appreciated. My solution is going to be to buy a Xonar Essence STX II and drop creative - But I fear now the sound card(s) may not be the issue... and I will end up with the same result

Hi,

The cards are working fine, you have proved that, so that's not the problem.

First I would uninstall all creative drivers and realtek onboard audio drivers from the PC. Then I would restart the computer and go into the bios and disable the onboard audio.

restart and install the latest creative z drivers and see what happens.

Ok. Turned off onboard audio, fresh format with windows 8.1 - same result with Z and Zx

Do you have HPET (High Precision Event Timer) in the BIOS? If so, make sure that is enabled and set to 64bit. I once played with that setting and it made my audio stuttery/robotic.

Kind of a dumb question, but you did use the same speakers/headphones on both systems to test it right?

djoye said:

Do you have HPET (High Precision Event Timer) in the BIOS? If so, make sure that is enabled and set to 64bit. I once played with that setting and it made my audio stuttery/robotic.

Click to expand...

HPET is enabled. But, I see no option for 32 or 64 bit.

xIronCrossx said:

Kind of a dumb question, but you did use the same speakers/headphones on both systems to test it right?

Click to expand...

Yes. Same speakers and headphones used
To test

Same drivers on both machines? Creatives web site states same driver for windows 8 and windows 7.
Windows sound set to the correct output?

I have the ZxR version. I had no issues on it on the 3 boards I tested it on for a hour.
Z87, z97 and a 1366.

Have you tried removing all but 1 or 2 sticks of ram. One on each side or 2 and see how the sound card acted yet? Have you looked through Creative's forum or posted there yet?

http://forums.creative.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6

Do you have the High-definition Audio Device for your R9 290X disabled? Do you have the Soundblaster control panel installed in addition to the drivers?

You might need to check your electrical shielding in your case it may be interfering with your card or maybe check your PCI-E bus if it's oc'd over 100 it can cause issues.