Creative Sound Blaster Z series not working on SPDIF/Tosklink
Background:
My Rig
Processor: AMD FX8320
Motherboard: Asus M5 A99FX Pro R2.0
Ram: 32 Gig DDR3
Video Card: Radeon R9 200 Series (PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, blue color)
Sound Card : Creative Blaster Z (PCIe x4 mode, black color)
Os: Win 8.1
I have hooked up this rig to my Denon A/V 2809CI Reciever via HDMI coming out of Radeon R9 and Optical/Toslink from Creative Blaster Z.
The Problem
I want to bang my head on the desk while writing this, I am not getting any sound to my AV Reciever when I am using TosLink for Creative. I tested that the Microphone, headphone, 3.5 mm jacks work, I can hear sound through them when I insert my headphone. But Not through Optical.
I have disabled onboard Sound via bios, didn’t install the HDMI Audio chip drivers that Radeon have. I, did however, notice that in my control panel ? Sound, I do see a TV sign with[AMD HDMI high definition sound] option and when set to default and test it, AV receiver gets a stereo signal. But when I setup Creative Blaster Z series Speakers as default (After reading on forums all over, it seems like you set the Creative speakers as default and Creative automatically kick off SPDIF output, shrugs I don’t know how creative is still a company at this stage with this sort of convoluted ways). So yeah, when I setup the Creative Blaster Z series as default and do a test, My receiver don’t receive any sound, I can however listen to it via Headphone jack or 3.5 mm jack on the card.
Resolution steps.
- Made sure that Sound and Video cards are not sharing channels, can share pics if that help. Not using PCIe slot because Vdo card was covering it.
- Uninstalled and wiped the whole system. Reinstalled Windwos 8.1, MB drivers (excluding Audio), Video and Audio drivers. Still same result, Setting SB speakrs as default wont get me any sound, Setting the HDMI High definition as default will send crappy stereo signal.
Where I am stuck.
So it turns out that if i unplug my Radeon HDMI input to my AV Receiver, sound card start working. However, as soon as I plug in HDMI input, it stops.. I Uninstalled the HDMI audio driver but still nothing.. same behaviour.. HDMI Plugged, No Sound - No HDMI - DTS 5.1 Sound
I am extremely frustrated because I don’t know what else to do … I am not sure what else I can do to get this thing working and I feel that it is a bit too early to burn the whole rig down ……so any help that you can provide would be great.. I just want creative to behave and send me a 5.1 channel signal via Toslink
Side notes:
- Yes, I did change the Spdif/Toslink cable to check if it works well.
- Reslotted both cards
- My AV receiver can take multiple input for the same A/V channel (my older system was similar but with GeForce and Razer Baracuda sound card)
Let me know if I can send pictures to help out some sort of diagnosis
Background:
My Rig
Processor: AMD FX8320
Motherboard: Asus M5 A99FX Pro R2.0
Ram: 32 Gig DDR3
Video Card: Radeon R9 200 Series (PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, blue color)
Sound Card : Creative Blaster Z (PCIe x4 mode, black color)
Os: Win 8.1
I have hooked up this rig to my Denon A/V 2809CI Reciever via HDMI coming out of Radeon R9 and Optical/Toslink from Creative Blaster Z.
The Problem
I want to bang my head on the desk while writing this, I am not getting any sound to my AV Reciever when I am using TosLink for Creative. I tested that the Microphone, headphone, 3.5 mm jacks work, I can hear sound through them when I insert my headphone. But Not through Optical.
I have disabled onboard Sound via bios, didn’t install the HDMI Audio chip drivers that Radeon have. I, did however, notice that in my control panel ? Sound, I do see a TV sign with[AMD HDMI high definition sound] option and when set to default and test it, AV receiver gets a stereo signal. But when I setup Creative Blaster Z series Speakers as default (After reading on forums all over, it seems like you set the Creative speakers as default and Creative automatically kick off SPDIF output, shrugs I don’t know how creative is still a company at this stage with this sort of convoluted ways). So yeah, when I setup the Creative Blaster Z series as default and do a test, My receiver don’t receive any sound, I can however listen to it via Headphone jack or 3.5 mm jack on the card.
Resolution steps.
- Made sure that Sound and Video cards are not sharing channels, can share pics if that help. Not using PCIe slot because Vdo card was covering it.
- Uninstalled and wiped the whole system. Reinstalled Windwos 8.1, MB drivers (excluding Audio), Video and Audio drivers. Still same result, Setting SB speakrs as default wont get me any sound, Setting the HDMI High definition as default will send crappy stereo signal.
Where I am stuck.
So it turns out that if i unplug my Radeon HDMI input to my AV Receiver, sound card start working. However, as soon as I plug in HDMI input, it stops.. I Uninstalled the HDMI audio driver but still nothing.. same behaviour.. HDMI Plugged, No Sound - No HDMI - DTS 5.1 Sound
I am extremely frustrated because I don’t know what else to do … I am not sure what else I can do to get this thing working and I feel that it is a bit too early to burn the whole rig down ……so any help that you can provide would be great.. I just want creative to behave and send me a 5.1 channel signal via Toslink
Side notes:
- Yes, I did change the Spdif/Toslink cable to check if it works well.
- Reslotted both cards
- My AV receiver can take multiple input for the same A/V channel (my older system was similar but with GeForce and Razer Baracuda sound card)
Let me know if I can send pictures to help out some sort of diagnosis