Auzentech Forte 7.1 woes

hi all

I am really hoping someone here has some bright ideas as i am totally out. I recently decided to upgrade from onboard sound (Asus Striker Extreme) to an XFi based Auzentech Forte 7.1 card (as usual awesome delivery from Scan cheers!). I only ever used headphones (Sennheiser HD 595) and mostly game but also listen to the odd MP3 etc.

over the weekend I uninstalled the old sound card drivers, removed the addon board, disabled the onboard sound in the bios and installed the new card into a spare PCIe slot. booted to windows and installed the downloaded drivers (1.1) from the manufs website.

thing seemed a little touch and go but eventually got sound. however, every time i tried to switch between Game Mode and Entertainment mode everything stopped and had real troubles to get any sound back (multiple reboots/shutdowns/unplug etc. Sometimes you will hear the start up windows sound however, once in windows nothing will work, other times it will work for a while but then just stop without warning, other times it works fine for entire gaming sessions etc.

so far i have uninstalled and reinstalled the sound drivers (both the 1.1 version from the website and the 1.0 from the CD) many times. swapping slots and moving the GFX card around and reinstalling the nvidia drivers for that as well. (*edit + i have been using drivercleaner to remove any other creative files etc)

nothing is working and im getting annoyed.

when the sound worked it sounded great, however, keeping it working would be kinda ideal.

has anyone had any experience with these cards and may know what i have done/am doing wrong?

asus striker extreme mobo
evga 8800GTX - latest forceware drivers from nvidia
corsair 4gig ram
Vista 64 SP2

I am only connecting the headphones via the headphone jack in the back (via an 3.5mm adapter)
I dont use speakers or have any connected.
i have tried windows audio settings of
stereo with speakers ticked
stereo without speakers ticked
5.1 with everything ticked.

under the sound card settings i have "Optimise speaker output for headphones" checked.

any help appreciated.
cheers
Jon
(sorry for long post)
*edit why didnt i see the "Help - technical & advisory" forum before putting this in here lol.. srry!

I have an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude and sometimes get BSODs when trying to switch mode. To avoid it use the Audio Control Panel, not the Console Launcher to switch modes.

As for Drivers, I've found Daniel K's recent updated driver packs to be very useful for driver installations that have gone awry. It rescued an X-Fi Xtreme Music installation for me recently, after I got a crash during installation and couldn't uninstall the old drivers. The pack comes with a very useful installation package that detects other drivers and will ask you if you want to remove them.

The latest package is here: http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...09/td-p/527485

Daniel K has also done a more recent beta Forte Driver, which you can find by searching the Creative forums.

hi there

thanks for the reply, downloaded and installed the driver but still getting similar results here.

will give it another go tomorrow evening with a fresh head.

cheers for the info about that driver set fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Some X-Fis, including the Forte, have problems working with 4GB RAM in the system in some system configurations.

If all else fails, can you take out a stick of RAM to test?

If it works with less than 4GB, the X-Fi Prelude uses different 64 bit RAM addressing so a modded Prelude driver might work. There's one here but the Forte isn't on the supported list. You could try it anyway. http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...09/td-p/533305

hi there

got home and removed the extra 2gig i had.. rebooted and everything was working. swapping out modes and all sorts... so was looking promising. however, bit of fiddling and boom everything stopped.. touching the sound card it felt quite warm which surprised me a bit tbh so moved it an extra slot away from the gfx card and turned on a desk fan pointing towards it and everything has run fine all evening.

Tomorrow i intend on testing this theory probably add in the ram again but so far so good with those daniel K drivers you suggested.

shall report back
thanks again for your time Uriel!

X-Fi chips can run a bit hot. The first editions had no heatsink and I can't see Creative and Auzentech adding them later for no reason. How's airflow in your case generally?

Some people have reported that adding more RAM also solves 4GB problems but I've never tested it myself.

hi there

didnt manage to test much last night as was out, but tonight i have drilled out a spare back plate and mounted an 80mm fan over the sound card and left the 2 back plates near the sound card out. i also added another 120mm fan at the top of the case.

The extra 2gig of ram is still not installed.

i uninstalled and reinstalled the Daniel K drivers again and just started up.. we have sound and can switch modes etc.

im going to be stunned if this does turn out to be a heat issue.. i simply never would have guessed this. im wondering if this card maybe faulty at all or if i simply dont have good enough air flow in my case :confused:

Silverstone Case - TJ09S i think it was... not a great case imo though
its now got 2 x 120mm fans in the top which are now pulling air down (yeah not ideal) but the other fans are already exhaust and they are:
rear 80mm is exhaust
and the large gfx card fan duct thing that is part of the case is also exhaust.

seems a little upside down to me, but seems to be working atm.

will try the extra ram in a bit and see how that goes :mrgreen:

well its been a couple of days since adding the extra cooling etc and the sound is still working fine.. gaming sessions and mp3s etc are all working well. PCs fans making a lot more noise but wearing headphones + music drowns it out :D added the extra 2gig of ram as well still all fine.

cheers for your help Uriel its been very much appreciated!
Jon

Glad it's working fine. Especially pleased for you that you've got it all running with the RAM.

I saw the thread over at head-fi too. I wouldn't worry about adding another headphone amp with HD595s. If you ever get more demanding headphones in the future it might be worth it. The amp in the Forte is pretty good and should drive the HD595s with ease.

heya

yeah i was pleased to get the extra RAM back in there as well tbh. i posted over on head-fi same day as i posted here as i was reading over there when i made the choice about this particular card. thanks for the heads up about the amp so far im impressed with the way its sounding but hey im a sucker for spending money :D

cheers
Jon