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Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Problems - PC crashes/freezes when playing audio in Windows XP.

System Spec:

Pentium 4 2.6Ghz
1024MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
Creative Inspire T7900
Windows XP Professional SP2

When I try to play an MP3 or a video with sound or a game or sometimes immediatly after startup the computer freezes and I can't do anything and the speakers make an annoying whine.

Windows sounds such as the starup and shutdown sounds and msn messenger play and also the 192 sample dvd audio from creative plays fine (at least so far), which seems a little odd to me.

It all seemed to start when last week my PC kept rebooting on startup. I located the problem to my internal PCI USB Hub. I restarted in safe mode, disabled it and Windows did load however it started crashing as described above. I removed USB card completly and still the problems so I can only assume the cause is the soundcard.

I've tried reinstalling the latest drivers. Tried the audigy in different slots. Done a "cleansweep" as described by Creative but still the problems remain. I'm running out of ideas now so any help anyone can give me is much appreciated.

Thanks.

Hammadian2

1st install this driver:

http://files.americas.creative.com/manualdn/Drivers/Others/8060/0x159CCD4A/EAX4DRV_AUDIGY2_1_84_50.exe

if it doesnt work well
they update the motherboard's BIOS and drivers

just give me the motherboard model number and i'll tell u from where to get the stuff

fozi999

ASKER

I've tried instaling that driver as an update however I haven't done it from a clean install.

I'll uninstall and give it a try then if that fails i'll report back with my motherboard details.

Thanks.

ChrisEddy

What are the conditions when this sound+lockup symptom happens, and how often?

fozi999

ASKER

Every time I play an MP3 or video with sound or play a game the pc crashes. Everything stops working with the screen showing what I was doing immediatly before. It may crash 5 seconds into playing sometimes 20 but it crashes every time with the longest it's taken so far being about 30 seconds.

I'm simply disabling the soundcard and not using any sounds when trying to find a solution to the problem.

I have a Dell Dimension 8100 computer and I have no idea about motherboards tbh. However the system chip set is an Intel 850 which I think is maybe similar or related???

fozi999

ASKER

I've found a couple of downloads at http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/filter_results.asp?strOSs=44&strTypes=DRV%2CARC%2CUTL&ProductID=572&OSFullName=Windows*+XP+Professional&submit=Go%21

INF Update Utility
and
Intel Application Accelerator

Should I download and instal these then try again?

I think the chipset has probably been modified customised by Dell so i'm not sure if these will work.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ChrisEddy

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fozi999

ASKER

Problem solved. I had looked at the Dell site before but I had overlooked a BIOS revision for user of Audigy and Audigy 2 soundcards which seems to have done the trick.

Thanks for all the help. :)