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Soundblaster Z is dead

S

st4rk

Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2003
Messages
1,013
This would be the second SoundBlaster card to die in under a year. I'm having so much fun just flushing my money down the toilet. Thanks Creative, your products are truly amazing!

Both the headphone and speaker out ports will not work. I even tested the center and rear outputs and those didn't work either. But for some reason the card is still recognizable by the OS.

Before you say anything, yes, I have tried:

-Rebooting
-Complete shutdown, reseat the card
-Different speakers
-Making sure it's not muted
-Reinstalling/Updating drivers
-Using windows builtin drivers
-Made sure the speakers are turned on
-Tried two different head sets
-Made sure all speakers and headsets worked on a different computer

Luckily I found an ASUS Xonar laying around so at least I won't have to resort to onboard audio...
 
Ouch. :( You didn't have any freak power outages/surges or static electricity shocks, did you?
 
Hmmm...

Were both Creatives cards that died Z series? If the card is under a year old surely it's within warranty?
 
That is weird. They don't appear to have a high failure rate. Might be something wonky with your particular setup and a z card. No fault of your own. Just a bad combo of parts or a bad slot on the mobo. Be interesting to see if the asus dies too.
 
Do you restart your computer a lot? When switching OS's and not leaving a lot of time between boots my Z will stop working. I have to take out the power from the PSU for a few minutes then it comes back (sometimes I have to reinstall the drivers). Now I avoid restarting because it got really annoying.

Their support admitted to me that their is a power issue when restarting quickly but didn't say if there would be a fix for it.
 
It does seem odd that the OP has lost two cards.

OP, did both cards die in the same machine? Were they in the same slot? Is there any link between the two events?

Just putting it out there.
 
Did you try the card in another pc? If they were bought new they are warrantied so it's not exactly money flushed.
 
Different computers. It really is just my luck both cards died in nearly the same amount of time. Funny thing is this ASUS card has been tossed around in storage bins, left out to collect dust, tossed in another storage bin, left on carpeting, etc...yet is working like a champ right now, I figured due to the neglect it suffered it was a fat chance it would wind up working. :)

Never really rebooted that much except for monthly Microsoft updates.

I probably won't bother with another Creative card until the next major new card release.
 
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