posted
This is kind of long, but if you are bored start at the bottom. I am still waiting for a response to the top msg I sent today.
This is another example bad customer service. You cannot call Creative without paying the long distance charges to wait on hold. They won't even let you email them dierctly. You need to fill out a form on their web site and submit a problem request. Then after several days they answer your question. My first answer was detailed but pretty cookie cutter. After I started to get technical - I got the damn call customer service for a replacement install CD - which I have already downloaded from a 3rd parties web site, because Creative wants to hit you again with $25 for a replacement.
Response from Customer: 7/12/2002 11:39:25 AM
Micheal - Did you even read my message to you??? I don't believe that I should have to pay $25 for a new CD when I spent $200 on a sound card. You know if I call cust service they will change me. Just send me the files I need in a zip file or tell me where to download.
Also, the drivers from the Compaq site are CREATIVE DRIVERS - that are microsoft certified, I am told they are the same drivers that Creative will be releasing on the creative web site in August. Please do not assume I am a fool - I spend a lot of money on your products and deserve some good customer service. If you cannot properly respond to my request for help - forward this to a supervisior. I am at wits end here - having an expensive sound card that will barely work is unexceptable. I will not purchase any more creative products if this is not resolved to my satisfaction. Thank you for your time.
Scott
Update my support request Cancel my Request Return to my support history
Response from Creative: 7/12/2002 10:24:22 AM
Scott,
You will need to contact our Customer Service department for a new CD that has a current version of the software on it. You can get in touch with them at 1-800-998-1000 and they can assist you in getting a new CD. Also if you go from a 3rd party site for drivers we do not support that.
Michael Creative Labs Technical Support
Response from Customer: 7/9/2002 8:36:54 PM
I am still unable to get the drivers installed. I believe that my cd is somehow damaged - it will not read ctrunx.exe. I would appreciate if I could download the contents of the ctrunx folder or could you please email it to me. I checked with customer service and it is close to 20 dollars to get a new CD. This is too migh for a product I spend 200 dollars on less then 6 months ago. Thanks for your help.
Scott
Update:
I was able to find the newest XP drivers (non upgrade) on Compaq's web site. I downloaded the entire 377mb file. Do I follow the same instructions when installing from non-upgrade type drivers? I am able to get the driver installed so that I get sound but the applications will not install properly - and I keep getting "drivers not installed properly - please reinstall the drivers" error type messages.
Update: I have tried all versions of uninstalling the drivers and creative programs. I have followed the instructions that you provided me, but it seems that creative is still all over my computer even after uninstalling the drivers with the utility and all the programs from the control panel. I even went into the registery and deleted all instances of "creative".
After removing all drivers & programs and moving the card to a different PCI - XP detects it on start up and I point it to the drivers provided by compaq for winxp/2000 it installs and i get sound. However, I am not able to get the two programs audio hq and surround mixer to run. I get the drivers installed improperly error. Please help. I really don't want to reinstall XP from scratch if I don't need to.
Response from Creative: 6/27/2002 10:25:54 AM
Scott,
1. Click START / RUN / Type MSCONFIG and press ENTER.
2. Insert a check to the left of SELECTIVE STARTUP and deselect 'LOAD STARTUP ITEMS'.
3. Select the SERVICES tab and select HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES.
4. Uncheck all results and click OK.
5. Click OK and reboot when prompted.
6. Enable the WINDOWS XP STARTUP MENU by rebooting your computer and tapping F8 once every second OR holding the SHIFT key while rebooting.
7. When the menu is displayed, select SAFE MODE and press ENTER.
8. Once in SAFE MODE, insert the sound card's installation CD.
9. Click START / RUN.
10. Type "X:\AUDIO\ENGLISH\DRIVERS\CTZAPXX.EXE into the OPEN field (REPLACE X WITH THE APPLICABLE CD-ROM DRIVE LETTER).
11. Click OK.
12. When the CREATIVE DRIVER UPDATE UTILITY opens, select DRIVER UNINSTALLATION under UPDATE OPTION.
13. If two out of the three options are disabled or greyed out under DRIVER TYPE, click OK. Otherwise, select one of the options and click OK. Once complete, repeat steps 7-11 again, selecting the other driver option(s).
22. Once you are prompted to either OPEN FROM CURRENT LOCATION or SAVE TO DISK, select SAVE TO DISK and download the update to MY DESKTOP.
23. When the file has completed the phase of being transferred to your computer, locate the file AUDRVWDM.EXE on your desktop and double-click the file.
24. The driver update utility will initialize and begin the phase of updating your sound board drivers. Follow the instructions carefully.
If any errors occur during this procedure, please reply to this message with the specific error information (When did the error occur, what is the error message (error code), etc.).
Michael Creative Labs Technical Support
Original Support Request from Customer on 6/25/2002 9:53:36 AM
Problem Description:
I first installed the Audigy in my system about 5 months ago. It worked fine until I reinstalled XP on my system. After setup Windows used it's own drivers that do not support the hardware fully. I inserted the installation CD and I get several errors including Macromedia director errors. I am able to browse the cd but when I try to run start.exe or many other files on the CD it makes the system hang. The CD does not look damaged. I was able to install each piece of software on the cd individually and update the drives using the Win2000 drivers on the CD. I downloaded the WinXP update - but when I run it - I get the error that no Audigy is detected. At this time I cannot get my rear speakers to work and when I select 2 speaker in the Creative software the sound only comes out the headphones. To get sound out of my speakers (frt) I need to select headphones. The connections on the back are correct. The headphones are connected to the frt port. Is there a place I can download the files from the CD that I need. Enough of the files so that the XP update will work? Thanks for your time.
Error Messages Received:
See Above
Troubleshooting Steps Performed Thus Far:
Reinstalled all software. Reinstalled all Hardware. Reinstalled Macromedia director files. Updated Every driver - to the ones on the install cd - forcing XP to use the older drivers.
posted
I'm thinking of this Michael guy responding in the Office Space voice:
"Yeah....we're gonna need you to call the customer service center...yeah. If you could just do that, we'd get your connected with the right stuff...yeah."
Now they want me to RMA the card because they think it is defective...... It's not the card it's the CD - just send me a fuckin CD. Well anyway I am going to RMA the damn thing just to cost them some postage. I hope they send me a new cd with the "repaired" card
quote:Originally posted by BoondockSaint: I'm thinking of this Michael guy responding in the Office Space voice:
"Yeah....we're gonna need you to call the customer service center...yeah. If you could just do that, we'd get your connected with the right stuff...yeah. That'd be great..... "
posted
6 Months after I started having a problem with my $200 sound card it still isn't working. I have probably put 60 hours in trying to fix it. Shortly after I stopped emailing Creative support I gave up and just said "screw it" I will live with 2 channel sounds with no Mic support.
The other day I was bored and I started to investigate the problem again with several web searches. I finally found a guy that had the same problem with his Audigy and figured it out on his own. I guess my motherboard and XP work together using ACPI. The Audigy1 when plugged into a ACPI motherboard (most new MB are ACPI compliant) will not play nice with the other PCI devices. It gets assigned some setting and will always get those no matter which PCI slot you put it in.
Anyways, I emailed Creative about getting a new Audigy and I am getting the same old runaround. They want to attempt to fix the problem and research a solution. I hate these bastards Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dig around in your BIOS and see if you can manually set PCI IRQs, or also possibly try setting the BIOS to non-PnP OS... I've seen similar problems with our PCI modem trying to share resources with video cards and I can usually **** around in the BIOS enough to get the bastard working.
Posts: 559 | From: Blaine, MN | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks I know I can manually set IRQs - but I guess I don't know exactly what I want to set them to. I will mess with it a bit tonight.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I found this at microsoft if you haven't found it already. If you weren't using XP i would know more about how they are shared. Sound card used to be on 5 and network on 9. Now everything likes to share channels heh.
SUMMARY This article offers a general description of how interrupt request (IRQ) sharing is managed in Windows XP. The description includes an explanation of why many of the devices on your computer seem to use the same IRQ and why Windows XP does not include resource rebalancing. MORE INFORMATION In Windows, peripheral component interconnect (PCI) devices can share IRQs. In accord with the Plug and Play capability that is defined by the PCI specification, adapters are configured by the computer BIOS and are then examined by the operating system and changed if necessary. It is normal behavior for PCI devices to have IRQs shared among them, especially on Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) computers that have Windows ACPI support enabled.
In Windows XP, Device Manager may list some or all of the devices on your ACPI motherboard as using the same IRQ (IRQ 9). (To view the list of resources, click either Resources by type or Resources by connection on the View menu). No option is available to change the IRQ setting. Windows takes advantage of the ACPI features of the motherboard, including advanced PCI sharing. The PCI bus uses IRQ 9 for IRQ steering. This feature lets you add more devices without generating IRQ conflicts.
Note that Windows XP cannot rebalance resources in the same way that Microsoft Windows 98 does. After PCI resources are set, they generally cannot be changed. If you change to an invalid IRQ setting or I/O range for the bus that a device is on, Windows XP cannot compensate by rebalancing the resource that was assigned to that bus.
Windows XP does not have this ability because of the more complex hardware schemas that Windows XP is designed to support. Windows 98 does not have to support IOAPICs, multiple root PCI buses, multiple-processor systems, and so on. When you are dealing with these hardware schemas, rebalancing becomes risky and therefore is not implemented in Windows XP except for very specific scenarios. However, PCI devices are required to be able to share IRQs. In general, the ability to share IRQs does not prevent any hardware from working.
The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer BIOS do not generally affect how Windows XP handles the hardware. However, Microsoft recommends that you set the Plug and Play operating system setting to No or Disabled in the computer BIOS. For information about viewing or modifying the computer BIOS settings, consult the computer documentation or contact the computer manufacturer.
Manually assigning IRQs to PCI slots in the system BIOS as a troubleshooting method may work on some non-ACPI systems that use a standard PC hardware abstraction layer (HAL), but these settings are ignored by Plug and Play in Windows if ACPI support is enabled. If you need to manually assign IRQ addresses through the BIOS to a device on an ACPI motherboard, you must reinstall Windows to force the installation to use a Standard PC HAL.
-------------------- Gisel, I was looking at the picture page and I do have to admit, you look pretty good for a gaming female. Having said that, don't expect any sympathy when we meet on the battlefield. I am a fighter first, lover second. Posts: 2220 | From: Prescott, WI, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok, that explains alot thanks Hauser. I do have ACPI installed with XP. A guy on the Abit forum said that a repair reinstall can be performed that will switch ACPI over to the standard PC. I really don't know if there are any negatives of going to non-ACPI but I think I am going to give it a try (can't make things worse).
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am still working on getting an RMA for my sound card from Creative (I will keep sending letters and calling until I get a new card). I did pick up an Herculies Fortissimo III 7.1 sound card from CompUSA yesterday for $49, because I got tired of all the sound issues I was having. To be honest I think this card has much better sound then my Audigy did when it worked correctly. It has a dedicated headphone jack so no need to unplug/replug all the time to switch when a sleeping G/F might make loud CS not possible. Controls are simple without all the extra Creative junk that get installed with one of their cards.
Chad - I got the newest version of PowerDVD with this card, does yours work ok? I keep getting an error about copy protection - I guess it thinks my TV-Out is enabled on my GeForce3 Ti500 but it's greyed in the options menu. I am using the most recent PowerDVD update and the newest detinator drivers for my video card.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dont think it is the TV out problem. The reason it is greyed out is because you need to switch to TV out in the display properties menu. Then it gives you some options. The problem with our cards is that you can only have TV out OR monitor output. And the TV output is very bad quality. Mainly because on the TV you cant adjust the picture geometry. I gave up trying to use my TV out because the quality was so bad.
Did you try to copy the PowerDVD?
Posts: 2331 | From: Rosemount | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am not in anyway trying to get TV out to work. I have a Hollywood Plus card (no longer in my computer) that decoded DVD's and took the load off the CPU back in the AMD K62400 days that has a perfect TV out on it. If you want it Chad you are welcome to it.
I did a bit of research on google groups and it looks like there are some issues with copy protections and PowerDvd. PowerDvd in addition to Macrovision passthrough also tried to detect if you have a TV out on you video card then only allows you to display on the monitor. However, I don't think it is getting it right.
Do you need a copy Chad? You are welcome to it - it's PowerDVD XP version.
posted
Well I got my Audigy back yesterday (actually a replacement new card). I was planning on reinstalling XP without the dreaded ACPI but after I checked into the problem further it looks like the Abit board really dosen't get along with the IRQ hog Audigy1. So, with tax return money in hand I ordered a new motherboard and chip
ASUS AYN8X Deluxe Nvidia2 Chipset (fastest Athlon chipset) Supports 8X AGP Supports 400DDR Memory 2 Firewire Ports 4 USB2 Ports 2 Onboard LAN cards (1 3Com, 1 Nvidia) Onboard 6 channel sound Onboard RAID0/1 2 Serial ATA ports (very cheap board for what you get $150 newegg)
posted
Wow, 8 months and the problem is solved. Why didn't either abit or audigy just tell you to replace the other component 8 mnonths ago? Good to hear that these things have a way to figure themselves out. took me almost 2 years to figue out that my dpal.dll error was a faulty driver from the manufacturer.
posted
My opinion is that Creative didn't want to admit it was their problem (or a bad batch of cards that were not compliant with APCI MB's) I would guess that in the middle of last summer they started to really get alot of support calls on it and just started to RMA out the bad cards. It was funny that in the middle of my email exchange with Creative last summer - all of a sudden they were like "it's a bad card". But earlier it was bad drivers or something I had set up wrong.
Creative did release the Audigy2 about 9 months after the Audigy1 - that tells me there were some issues that resulted in a total re-design...
Anyways..... Fuck Creative - I hope the onboard sound turns out to be better then the Audigy1.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have 6 channel onboard on my board and It sounds great.
-------------------- Gisel, I was looking at the picture page and I do have to admit, you look pretty good for a gaming female. Having said that, don't expect any sympathy when we meet on the battlefield. I am a fighter first, lover second. Posts: 2220 | From: Prescott, WI, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Initial results of my computer upgrade - FPS in UT2003 are up 30%-40%. CPU benchmarks are up 30% (Systemmark 2002, Sandra, 3DMark 2001). Seti work units are now completed in around 2 hours vs 3-4 hours for the 1800XP. I think the combo of the extra cashe, faster memory, and Nvidia2 chipset helped to push the performance increase over 22% (1.5 - 1.833 increase in Mhz is 22%)
I also bumped up my multiplier in the BIOS from (11x166=1.826) to (12.5x166=2.075) and the XP2500 is now recognized as a XP2800 and runs stable at 2.075. So I would say a $150 processor performing at a $367 processor is a damn good deal.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have been hearing that the newer radeon 9700 card blows all our nvidia cards out of the water. I always hated ati because they couldnt make a good driver if it would save their life but I am hearing their drivers are rock solid now. Have you seen any tests or heard anything about this Klaus?
-------------------- Gisel, I was looking at the picture page and I do have to admit, you look pretty good for a gaming female. Having said that, don't expect any sympathy when we meet on the battlefield. I am a fighter first, lover second. Posts: 2220 | From: Prescott, WI, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, the Radeion 9700Pro blows away every other video card and I have seen it bench marked against the Nvidia FX card coming out soon and it still wins.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Well anyway I am going to RMA the damn thing just to cost them some postage. I hope they send me a new cd with the "repaired" card ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[argue]](graemlins/argue.gif)
![[brd]](graemlins/brdflick.gif)
Creative
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
