WinXP and Sound Blaster Question

Factual Questions
1

I am in need of serious help here, because I don’t have any idea what is causing this, and I don’t really want to reinstall Windows.

After several system lockups, WinXP Home doesn’t always want to load. It sometimes takes 5 or 6 tries to load. Also, and I think this is related, my SB Audigy sound card suddenly went to about FM-quality sound and I couldn’t change it back to its normal sound quality. I tried reinstalling the drivers, but each time, Windows would refuse to load on the restart. I think I finally got all the old drivers uninstalled, but WinXP wouldn’t load last night. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix it, please hurry, because I’ve got a LAN party tonight and I don’t want to have to miss it.

System Specs:
1 Ghz Athlon
128 MB RAM
40GB HDD
SB Audigy Gamer
GeForce 3 Ti200

-brianjedi

2

This is a wild shot in the dark, but did you happen to update or change the SB drivers before this happened?

Also, a good resource for things Geforce is this place. Check out the forums and search for your problem, I actually remember some people complaining about it.

Since you’re having a LAN party, I assume you already knew about the guru site, but thought I should add it just in case.

3

Are you sure all references to Sb are off the machine?

I have an Audigy as well, and as you know, when the machine starts up you get a Windows chime and then an Audigy “splash”

Perhaps there’s still reference to this stuff in your Start.INI. I can’t tell you how to edit it without having access to the XP GUI, but perhaps someone else here can.

Another good thing to try would be to take the card out completely (at least the pci part) and see what windows does. then clean up any references of SB (search for SB, CL and Creative) and then reboot one more time to be sure it works, and then put the card back in and do another reinstall of the drivers.

4

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I’ll have to see if things are working this afternoon, as I’m at school right now and I don’t have access to my system (obviously). The WinXP not loading thing still bothers me, though, because it just started a few days ago and is getting progressively worse.

-brianjedi

5

Here’s the latest update: Still no luck. Here’s the problem in full:

  1. I start Windows XP and log in to my Admin account. (I run multiple accounts.) I launch Device Manager (or Mangler) and uninstall every sound device I can. Several codecs for audio and legacy audio are still listed and uninstallable. (All traces of Creative’s audio software are gone.)

  2. I restart the computer. Windows loads fine.

  3. Hi Opal! (I always wanted a reason to do that.)

  4. I log back in as Admin. Windows has auto-detected a “Multimedia Audio Controller” and tries to install it, but it doesn’t install. I’m pretty sure that it’s the onboard audio controller from the motherboard. I cancel the installation after it fails. I check Device Manager and find that the Creative WDM Audigy Processor is still installed. I uninstall it, and then run the SB installer on the CD. I install the drivers, and restart the computer.

  5. Windows fails to load during the startup procedure. Multiple restarts fail. The only solution is to leave the PC off for several minutes and then restart, choosing “Start Windows Normally.”

  6. Log in as Admin to find that the sole mixing device installed is Emu10Kx Audio [DC00]. This is what prompted the entire reinstall process, because it sounds like crap. The SBAudigy XP driver upgrade fails to detect an installed card.

Anyone have any ideas?

-brianjedi