DallasStar

Recently, I've been hearing about people who's Audigies are just dieing on them for no apparent reason. I did some searching around on the net and found the reason. (dEykee, you may find this interesting ) The problem occurs when people add new hardware to their computers. When they do this, the EEPROM of the Audigy has a slight chance of being overwritten by junk (and in many cases, it does get overwritten with junk ). This can cause a dead Audigy and wasted money.


SO ALL AUDIGY OWNERS:

BEFORE ADDING NEW HARDWARE, TAKE OUT THE AUDIGY.

(gee thanx Creative for this great convenient feature )

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"A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

e-Seeker

Tx for keeping 'little' me in mind If there should be, for a fact, an apparent reason it should be that someone really messed up! ...as for feature as for letting us know before actually being too late (this goes to Creative!)...

But still, I don't recall adding new HW after actually installing the Audigy and nJoying it... Could it happen even when doing some kind of SW upgrade and Device Manager reinstalls already installed HW? (am I making any sense? )
Anyway, I'm sure I didn't add anything in my box after the Audigy... so what now?

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Necrosis

This is the problem I was thinking about when dEykeé posted. I think there is a certain rev. of Audigy board that has this issue. It seems it was the earlier models; there is also some cap/resistor missing (I think) to mark which ones "may" have this issue. I don't work tomorrow so I will see if I can find it when I get home. There is a nice write up of pictures somewhere; I just have to find it again.

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e-Seeker

Yup, I've read it somewhere on a Creative-Audigy forum... I was just checking it out, but got a bit lost in there... There is a cap/resistor missing, just beside the C172 conductor (to the left of it); beats me as for further technical explanations Unfortunately I do have to work tomorrow, so Necrosis, hope you do find it again
...I've also read somewhere SB090 and SB092 being mentioned, guess the SB090 has the tendency to fry-out, but with that resistor present it doesn't(?)

Wanted (REWARD included): dEykeé's Audigy, ALIVE! (sorry, need sleep )

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Necrosis

I'm sorry but I cannot find it anywhere!! Stupid me should of saved the link; I read it before DH started up. If I only would of known!!!

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e-Seeker

I'll try to do some research 2day, just need to get my head wiped 1st
I'm still baffled 'bout 'SB090' & 'SB092', though; gotta know

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Matth

Is this likely to be of use?
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/livetolive51/

Describes reprogramming the EEPROM using some software and a Realtek 8029 Ethernet card (and some surgery!)

__________________
Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

e-Seeker

Hmmm, a bit sceptical, I am
Wouldn't want to do anything to my Live!, to Audigy especially... But, could the card be dead-R?

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Necrosis

Here is a link to a thread that is related to this subect

http://driverheaven.net/thread.php?id=4135

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e-Seeker

|wondering| Could you move the contents of that thread in here? Would be more practical, no?

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Necrosis

I don't know to be honest. I have not done much in regards to editing threads and so fourth. Maybe Dallas has your answer?

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e-Seeker

Well, my pic. of the working Audigy is in a thread with/of a subject "weeeeeee" (+/- 'e')... Would be better off in here...

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Impulse

[SIZE=x-small]Thanks for the info, dallastar[/SIZE]

e-Seeker

Somehow, that 'rule' of taking the Audigy out before installing any new devices cannot be applied... Well, at least not in my case...
Hopefully you won't get to live through it like I did... Damn piece of s***!

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Necrosis

I pulled this off the Creative Europe site.

http://uk.europe.creative.com/suppor...asp?thre=21897

Author: SaintAngel

Here is a 'short' Summary of the most usefull information from the origional thread.
http://nl.europe.creative.com/suppor...asp?thre=14267
(Thanx to Garrel, Dannol48, mike7, hmmm, Jay99, Manitou83, WilliamG & all others.)

The problem centers around people not being able to install the Creative update
or the Creative XP-CD. The installer reports :

"Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster card on your system.
Please ensure that your Sound Blaster hardware is properly installed before running
this Setup program."

When you have experienced this, your card 'may' have become defective
(more on this later), please check if You also have any of the following problems :


A DEFECTIVE card can display the following symptoms:

No 5.1 audio, ie NO Sound coming from the rear speakers, only the front speakers
No working ASIO drivers
No EAX
Creative Diagnostic reports "SoundFont Error"
AudioHQ does not show card address on soundcard icon
Unable to use playcenter correctly and creative speaker/mixer without it locking up
No working Midi from the drivebay (Midi via the gameport is functional)
In Sounds and Audio Devices / Properties, the card is listed as "Emu10KxAudio[D000]"
In Device Manager, '!' is shown next to 1394 Net Adapter
In Device Manager, sound card listed as "Creative Audio Audigy Processor (WDM)"
In Device Manager, No Gameport is listed (however the gameport is functional)

Defective card Registry entries :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\P CI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_00401102&REV_03]
"Creative Audigy processor"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\P CI\VEN_1102&DEV_4001&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00]
"PCI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller"

THere is NO entry for the gameport.


WORKING cards (or not suffering from this specific problem) :

Have none of the above errors
All creative applications, drivebay and remote work

Working card registry entries :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\P CI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_00511102&REV_03
"Creative SB Audigy"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\P CI\VEN_1102&DEV_4001&SUBSYS_00101102&REV_00
"PCI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\P CI\VEN_1102&DEV_7003&SUBSYS_00401102&REV_03
"Creative Audigy Gameport"

What about the Firewire ?

The 1394 firewire port has native Windows support in 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP.
It should install and enable under PnP (install with the Audigy CD isn't necessary).
If it cannot, you probably have a damaged card.


Defective ?!?, What, how, why ???

What we know :

It's not OS specific, Windows XP pro/home, 2000 & 98/ME are reported.
It's not a specific type of audigy card.
It's not mobo specific, Abit, MSI, ASUS, Epox & SOYO have been reported,
allthough the ABIT-KR7A-R & MSI K7t266Pro2 boards have the highest incidence.

and most important :
ONCE THE CARD HAS BECOME DEFECTIVE, IT CANNOT BE REPAIRED BY A DRIVER UPDATE !!!!!!


How does it happen ?

THere are only theories:

Non-ACPI-compliant PCI card in a system with ACPI-HAL installed

There are reports that Creative Support have unofficially stated that the 'ID's' for the Audigy card
seem to get scrambled. There is an EEPROM chip on the card which contains information on what particular
card it is, model etc and a few feature codes.

It happens when there is a non-ACPI-compliant PCI card in a system with ACPI-HAL installed.
ACPI-Bios tables built during post are used by ACPI-HAL. A card that reports itself as ACPI during post (but isn't)
and ACPI-Bios proceeds to build table data for the card (possibly invalid) may be the root cause of this problem.
ACPI-HAL may be writing data for power management functions to invalid locations, i.e. garbage in/garbage out situation.

ACPI-PM features may "trip" this problem, e.g. during sleep-mode start/end. That might cause Audigy "firmware" to be overwritten (mis-directed write by ACPI-HAL/ACPI-Bios Tables) during both install and after install.
That could explain why replacement cards blow-up after days.

Check specifications for all the PCI cards installed in your system for ACPI Compliance.
Those with 3Com 3C905B-TX legacy PCI cards (now out of production). They are not ACPI Compliant.
They are also not on the XP certified hardware list.

Frankly, Microsoft warns about using non-XP certified hardware, so this may be a trap!
No one wants responsibilty for this problem...or has a DISCLAIMER ready.
If in doubt, reinstall XP without ACPI, or replace the 3Com card with an ACPI compliant NIC card
(especially if you want to retain ACPI-HAL).

Everyone that has installed "Standard PC" is working OK with replacement Audigy cards.
Many have also replaced whatever offending PCI card with a newer ACPI compliant card, as added insurance.

Creative has stated they do not update firmware during installation.
Not aware of any statement that firmware doesn't exist.


The R132 resistor

Someone found out that some of the replacement Audigy's sent by Creative have 1 component more on the card,
which may explain why some cards work and others become defective again.

To identify the working revision, hold the Audigy card face up, with the backplane to the left
and the PCI slot pins to the bottom. At the lower right-hand corner of the Audigy board
are four capactors in a group standing straight up to a height of about 1/2 an inch off the PCB.
These are numbered on the PCB as C154, C160, C166 and C177. Now immediately above this grouping is
a very small capacitor numbered C172. On the working Audigy's in the space on the PCB
immediately to the left of this is a small black square approximately 1/8" square standing a similar
height off the PCB. On the non-working Audigy's, this component is not present.


The Solution

Replacing the card.
(As I know from first hand experience, not an easy task.)

David Hamilton :
For replacement within 30 days, you generally bring the card back to the dealer.
After 30 days, you contact tech support and if they think it's a hardware fault,
you get RMA approval directly from Creative.

It is generally a good idea to contact tech support with details of exactly which
troubleshooting steps that you have tried. There are a lot of people that have
this problem with fully functioning cards, and reinstalling drivers using CTZAPXX.EXE
and switching PCI slots/disabling ACPI can solve the problem.

Contact details for tech support are available here:

http://ask.europe.creative.com/srvs/...=NotSolved.tem


Another Thread about this problem:
http://forums.viaarena.com/messagevi...&threadid=6354

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Necrosis

Author: Xenoide

http://uk.europe.creative.com/suppor...asp?thre=24258

IMPORTANT!!! Test procedure for EEPROM bug can be found here!!!


************************************************** **********************

Due to the help of another forum member I could now get some info about what is going on, if your Audigy gets damaged by the mainboard and

gets the EEPROM bug.

The symptoms may differ, you get a Soundfont error in Creative Diagnostics, The mixer device has wrong labeling, your Audigy won't get found any more.


Now I know, that it comes from an overwritten Subsystem ID.

You should know, that each card in your system has some identification info on it. This tells the system from which manufacturer it is and

what it actually is.

The Vendor ID from Creative is: 1102h
The Device ID of the Audigy is: 0004h

And now it has an additional ID, that tells you what sort of Audigy you have, it is the

Subsystem ID.

Usually it should be:

00511102h (0051h for the type and 1102h for Creative) for Audigy Platinum
00531102h for Audigy Player
00421102h for Audigy CT0070
00431102h for Audigy CT0072

I don't know if there are more, maybe this list is not complete yet.

If your ID is different from them, the Audigy will no longer be found by the drivers and you have these bugs.

To solve this on your own, it gets a bit difficult now. One way is to solder out the EEPROM on the Audigy and reprogram it by yourself.
You have then to change register 3Eh to 51 or 53.

If there's some way to do it while the chip stays mounted on the board, you'll need some special Flasher. If someone has further info on that, I'd be glad to hear them.


Until now you could use this information to check your board if it's faulty. You'll find the SubSystem ID e.g. if you print the information of msinfo32.exe to a txt file, then search for the Audigy, until you find a string like thisone:

PNP-Device Identification PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_00511102&REV_03\2&EBB 567F&0&70

or simply let your Notepad search this text file for PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004

Here is the SUBSYS what you search for...


I'm still searching for a possibility to patch the EEPROM just by software without unmounting it...


Please ensure you're really having this EEPROM bug before trying to read this thread.


************************************************** **********************

Hi folks,

I'm currently trying to find a simple way to help the users to test if their Audigy got corrupted by the EMU bug and lost its EEPROM, so they could react much faster and won't lose many nerves by trying to fix it.

But to manage that I need your help!!

What is your task?
First of all, I need someone now, who still has his corrupted Audigy and could mount it to his PC.

I've developed a tiny scanning script that uses Craig Hart's PCI dumper utility.

Download it from my homepage:

http://transcillity.bei.t-online.de/ScanPCI.exe

This is a self-extracting archive. Specify a folder to unpack it. Then go to this folder and execute install.bat just by double-clicking it. Now search a floppy disk, it must be one without any hardware errors (my disks have sometimes defective sectors, so I warn you...). It does not mind if there's something on it left, but you should note that it will be wiped completely!!

Type the letter of your floppy drive (e.g. a) and then the installation will start.

This is necessary, because Windows 2000 and XP have some fu..ed-up hardware interfaces and they can't be accessed directly...

After the disk is ready, you must reboot your computer and boot from this new disk. Maybe you must go to BIOS first and set the Floppy Disk as first boot device before.

After your computer starts booting from the disk, you get into one menu, where you get ask, if you want FAST or SAFE config. Fast means, that a Drive-Cacher will be loaded to increase the disk access dramatically... If this won't work for you, there is the Safe option left...

The rest is automatic. At the end you should see some tech stuff quickly scrolling, if you get some error-message instead or nothing happens (the floppy LED stays dark for some time, reset your computer and try the Safe config instead)



If you finished it successfully, you may boot Windows now, the information was stored on the disk. In Windows, please open the file PCIDUMP.TXT on that disk and paste its complete contents to this thread. I'll have a look on it then and verify it with mine.


Here's my own for example, I've reduced it to the Audigy entry to save some space:

Vendor 1102h Creative Labs
Device 0004h EMU10K2 Audio Chipset (SB Audigy)
Command 0005h (I/O Access, BusMaster)
Status 0290h (Has Capabilities List, Supports Back-To-Back Trans., Medium Timing)
Revision 03h, Header Type 80h, Bus Latency 20h
Self test 00h (Self test not supported)
PCI Class Multimedia, type Audio
Subsystem ID 00511102h SB0090 Audigy Platinum
Subsystem Vendor 1102h Creative Labs
Address 0 is an I/O Port : 0000B000h
System IRQ 10, INT# A
New Capabilities List Information :
Power Management Capabilities
Supports power state D2
Supports power state D1
Current Power State : D0 (Device fully-operational, no power saving)

Red means important values, blue are neutral and green are variable ones.

At the end I must say, that I don't know if that's the right approach, but since some users reported detection problems of their Audigys, I think it's a good idea to start here!

Thank you all who want to participate here!

Regards,
Xenoide

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RIV@NVX

Looked for some Audigy info. There are these:
SB0090 - Every retail card
CT0092 - OEM card (my one for example)
CT4820 - dunno
+ CT0070 and CT0072 that you mentioned above.

Is that all?

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-- Vedran

DallasStar

.....well..... audigy 2's out now and i'm sure everyone that needs to has heard about this bug by now. unstickied

__________________
"A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

doughman

thnx for the heads up i checked....mine is a updated one WHEW

reno

I got my audigy when it first came out and have installed and changed more than like....8 pieces of hardware (in card form) and never had a problem.

Most of these problems are probably because PCI 2.2 keeps giving power to the PCI bus allowing stuff to interfere with the audigy...but I always unplug before inserting/removing anything...maybe that will help.