Sound card causing BSOD

[zephyr89]

I had been having problems with my sound card lately (creative X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro). The sound would occasionally cut out, and I would have to switch modes on it to restore sound. Then, two days ago, my sound was gone completely, windows noticed "new hardware" and when I went into device manager, it did not recognize my sound card. After much effort, I was able to uninstall the old, and reinstall the new drivers. It worked for less than a day, and right in the middle of playing a game, a BSOD flashed, and I heard terrible crackling and hissing noises from my headphones.

Then it wouldn't boot into windows. I stopped the comp from auto restarting at a BSOD and it is a STOP 0x0000008E (0xC000005 0x8054BFD2), and the hissing and crackling was even worse at this blue screen. I tried a few diags like memtest 86, and a hard drive sector check, cause I though my computer had died. My computer was totally crippled, but as soon as I physically removed the sound card from my motherboard, the computer booted right into windows like nothing was ever wrong.

I would perform some of my own continuity tests on the sound card, but I really don't want to kill my computer, and I don't have another "test subject" to try it out on.

My question here is, was this BSOD caused by catastrophic hardware failure, or could it have been caused by the drivers I have had issues with the entire life of this card? Whats your take on the sound card causing a BSOD, and with that error code?

 

[festerovic]

What OS is this? And the quick answer is yes, drivers could be the culprit. Also, could be the physical slot on your mobo. Creative is know for poopy drivers. One common thread I saw was people with 32 bit OS and 4 gigs of ram. Creative tech support actually told them to remove RAM to make the sound card work, LOL!

I know there is a guy that made aftermarket drivers for x-fis that supposedly work really well, but I forgot his name, sorry. If you search google for x-fi and drivers and dig for a bit, you could find them. Seem to cure everyones problems.

 

[monsta]

I have the exact same card and its been a nightmare.

Festorovic is talking about the Daniel K drivers , just google it and you will find a download for them.
I have the same problems and it just gives me bsod after bsod just like yours on both Vista and 7. It ran perfectly on XP.

The Daniel K drivers worked better but my pc still crashes with this card. You are better off ripping it out and having your pc run stable.

I suggest upgrading to an Azuntech or Asus Xonar sound card. The drivers and cards are of much better quality and less of a headache.

 

[gamerk316]

*sigh*

Use either custom drivers, or get a non-Creative brand sound card. With Creative, those are really your only two options.

 

[zephyr89]

I'm using XP, and I do have 4 gigs of ram.

 

[zephyr89]

Best answer selected by zephyr89.