Did I kill my 5.1 system and a sound card by turning on a light?

Hi all,

Hope someone has an idea here, not 100% sure whether this is the bnest forum or Hexus.Help. The system in question in the X2 4400 on the 'My System' button, not the 3400 system. The Audigy 2 connects to the coax on a Pure Digital Digitheatre DTS via a Stereo minijack to RCA cable, to give me 5.1/DTS.

Basically, watching some films last night, decided it was a bit dark, and switched on the only side light in the living room. The second I flipped the switch, the 5.1 gave a high pitched whine for a second or two, and I turned to look at the screen - the PC had a BSOD on screen, but restarted before I could note the message.

When the PC restarted there was no volume control icon in the taskbar, and the Creative Control panel told me it couldn't find the sound card. I turned off, opened the case and took the Audigy 2 out. Switched on, then turned off again. I put the Audigy 2 back in, and turned on again, and the volume icon had re-appeared and the Creative control panel was working again.

All the settings were still the same, i.e. Digital output only and set to use an external sp-dif decoder. So I played a film but got no sound - I checked the amp to see that a signal was reaching it (it will show up Dolby Pro Logic/Dolby Digital/DTS depending on the source - it was blank) so I checked the Optical in from my Xbox - that was fine.

I plugged headphones into the Audigy 2 and couldn't get any sound, so I turned off again, removed the Audigy card, and switched the on board sound on in the BIOS. I updated the drivers for that to the latest version, and still couldn't get any sound on the coax channel of the amp. I swapped the cables so the PC was feeding into the analogue in instead, and that also works.

I left it last night with the PC connecting to the analogue in, and turned the amp off, with the regular on/off switch on the centre speaker, and the one on the Sub, which also acts as the amp for the rest of the speakers.

Any thoughts? I can't connect the PC to the optical, as it's already in use (and with an optical splitter), and I need my 5.1, not analogue (besides, my regular tv signal goes through the analogue). I have no idea whether the amp channel is gone, the sound card, the cable. Everythng looks and smells ok, no burning, so I need some help!

Thanks for reading this.

Ignore this - I got it fixed.

good man :)

You got me really curious, what caused the symptoms?

Quote:

Originally Posted by awm

You got me really curious, what caused the symptoms?

Wish I knew to be honest. To fix it, I tried the Audigy 2 card in another comp to see if it was busted it detected fine, so installed the drivers and played some mp3s - no problems. So, I figured I'd reinstall the Audigy in the HTPC, disable the on board sound, uninstall the driver sets both and reinstall the Audigy drivers/software.

I plugged in the A2 card, switched on the PC and hey presto - it worked when it didn't before! It's been fine since then, wth no hassles - however, I plugged my mic into the mic slot to use my webcam to chat to my sis in Oz. Not matter what, that hangs the pc when it gets to windows, similar to the short that BSOD'd it when I turned that light on the 1st time.

I have no idea what's causing it, but the main thing I'm worried about is the surround sound, and that's working fine.

Inanimate objects out to get us. The cause of 99% of PC problems.