Can't Install ZX on Win7 (Works on Win8)

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blade52x

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I've been at this for two hours, and I just give up. I cannot get a new Creative ZX sound card to install in Windows 7 64-bit. I cannot get it to install in Win 8 either on the gaming machine. But it works fine in my other Windows 8 64-bit machine, so I have no idea what the problem is. When I try to install the package from Creative's website, I get the following error :

"Setup is unable to detect a supported product on your system."

Initially it showed up as "HD Audio Device" in the device manager, so the motherboard was detecting it, and Windows could see it. But the driver CD, and online download froo their website, both failed with the above error. I then switched the card around into different slots, with no success. As a last resort, after trying many more things (listed below) I ran update driver software (search online) within the device manager and it now shows up as "SB Recon3D PCIe". The package still didn't install. I extracted the package into a folder, and tried to run update driver software manually (to that folder), and all it did was update the driver version to more a recent date. It still shows up as "SB Recon3D PCIe" and I cannot install the software package to get my computer to recognize this card as ZX and actually play sound, which I get none of right now.

Other things I have tried/done (and not in any particular order) :
- Different PCIe slots
- Ran as administrator
- Logged into the Win7 administrator and trying to install
- Removed all old creative entries using driver cleaner
- Driver CD
- I've also tried to installing a Windows 8 partition (brand new clean OS attempt), and it still returns the same error.
- Tried the Recon3D driver since Windows seems to detect it as such, and still no go.
- Using motherboard latest bios
- Using bios defaults (or optimized defaults)


Any help would be greatly appreciated... Not happy over my wasted night. I would love to get this working before my Corsair sp2500 speakers get here later this week. I'll send it a support ticket to Creative themselves later... :(
 
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Yes. I've never had it enabled and I double checked now to make sure it's still disabled and it is.
 
Pia, but it's always best to eliminate all possible reasons for the error. Go barebones on the computer, just necessary components to boot successfully and back off any overclocks.

Edit: you might also want to check if any bios updates address any issues with the card and your mobo. Not common at all but it takes very little time to check.
 
Is there any particular reason you're not just running setup from the installation CD? I'm so confused as to why you're running a web program from creative...

Just use the install cd....don't install from device manager..
 
I've already tried the above two suggestions. Also to add

- I've also tried to installing a Windows 8 partition, and it still returns the same error.
- Tried the Recon3D driver since Windows seems to detect it as such, and still no go.

I'm about ready to give up and send it back. This seems to be a problem that's happened to others over the years, and I can't believe there isn't a solution out there for this issue.
 
You should probably do a system restore (search for system restore in the start menu) to return your system to a point prior to even putting the creative card in, and then just run the CD setup. Doing a system restore may help because you most likely fucked your shit up by running the web update nonsense and installing from device manager, so you need to restore windows to a point and time before any of that shit happened. I'm so confused as to why you did what you did -- What it sounds like you did was installing from device manager and a program update from the web before using the install cd, am I understanding this correctly?

Insert card. Boot up. Windows detects HDMI audio. Then you run the installation CD. Reboot. That's it, card installed. Pretty much how it went for me.

Also, like mentioned I would search for a BIOS update for the motherboard. I know some motherboards can't detect the asus phoebus card properly without an update, so that could help in this instance as well.

Again. Before doing anything do a system restore. I can almost guarantee you fucked your install/windows registry up by doing recon3d driver installs and installing from device manager, just system restore to a point prior to the card being in the system. I would do this and do things over using the installation CD.
 
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xoleras said:
Also, like mentioned I would search for a BIOS update for the motherboard. I know some motherboards can't detect the asus phoebus card properly without an update, so that could help in this instance as well.
Click to expand...

This is the only thing I can think of at this point. I've already tried doing this on a clean install of Win 8 on the same PC (before using device manager) and still ran into the same problem. And I was already running into this problem before I used the device manager on the Win 7 operating system. I have the latest bios on the Z77 MPower, and I've tried bios defaults as well. Windows sees the card (will show up as "High Definition Audio Device") but neither the CD, nor the downloaded driver package can get started because it comes back with the same error I have listed in the original post.

The device manager attempt was a last resort attempt. Outside of having used it to install an Abit Airpace Wifi years ago, I never use it to install drivers. I updated the original post to hopefully make that a little bit more clear.
 
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remove nvidia hd audio drivers and try again.

i remember having that issue before.

or you dont have the sound card plugged in the PCI slot correctly.
 
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I'll try that when I get home later. But I think I remember trying to install the sound card on a fresh OS install before I installed any Nvidia drivers. But I'm not sure.

I've also ordered a Z77 Extreme4 next day from Amazon, to see if it really is something with the motherboard. I've had other issues with this MPower and honestly, I'm almost ready toss it. It overclocks well, but there have been too many times where I've changed one setting in the bios (unrelated to overclocking) which caused me to lose display, go into a boot loop, lose a hard drive in Windows - it's been a real PITA at times, and this might be the last straw.
 
blade52x said:
I'll try that when I get home later. But I think I remember trying to install the sound card on a fresh OS install before I installed any Nvidia drivers. But I'm not sure.

I've also ordered a Z77 Extreme4 next day from Amazon, to see if it really is something with the motherboard. I've had other issues with this MPower and honestly, I'm almost ready toss it. It overclocks well, but there have been too many times where I've changed one setting in the bios (unrelated to overclocking) which caused me to lose display, go into a boot loop, lose a hard drive in Windows - it's been a real PITA at times, and this might be the last straw.
Click to expand...

always install NVidia drivers first with nvidia HD audio drivers and then install the sound card drivers if you are doing a fresh insall.

otherwise you might get a black screen after installing nvidia drivers if you installed Creative drivers first.

i had that issue with Recon 3d.
 
I'm done officially. It just refuses to work. It works perfectly fine in the VM Farm where i have it hooked up for now (for music). But damnit I would have really enjoyed it for gaming.

Creative, fix your shit. God damn. Googling this has shown me this has been an issue for like a decade now with various cards. And the kicker is that there's never a working solution found...
 
blade52x said:
I'm done officially. It just refuses to work. It works perfectly fine in the VM Farm where i have it hooked up for now (for music). But damnit I would have really enjoyed it for gaming.

Creative, fix your shit. God damn. Googling this has shown me this has been an issue for like a decade now with various cards. And the kicker is that there's never a working solution found...
Click to expand...

Very strange. I really found the Z software to be leagues better than prior software from creative, maybe give it another shot with the new motherboard? I've heard of some people having software x-fi issues but the Z not so much.

I know its frustrating, i've been there with various types of hardware over the years :(
 
Well, it works on the Z77 Extreme4, so that pretty much confirms there's some kind of issue between the Z77 MPower and Z-Series. Now what to do with the MPower...
 
shooting range?

I've always had trouble installing my old x-fi. I dreaded the problems that would arise after a reformat. Certain drivers just wouldnt work saying that there isn't a detected card. I had to resort to older drivers then update them after it installed. My Zx installed without any problems. For what its worth, I'm using the Extreme4 as well
 
I had my z show up as a recon3d also and the only thing that fixed it was uninstall drivers, run driver sweeper 3.2 and clean out the creative stuff, run ccleaner and get rid rid of any extra junk and try again. I don't know why it started showing up as a recon3d but this fixed it for me.
 
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