Is my SBLive dead beyond repair?

Yomat · Aug 28, 2003, 03:35 AM

Hoyo.

I accidentally shorted several of the AUX_EXT pins on my SBLive Value the other week. After that the machine locks/freezes every time I try to do anything with the card. I've tried this on another machine with the same results.

Although the card gets detected by w2k as a media device. But after I install drivers, depending on the driver, the card freezes the machine at install time or in boot.

Anone seen this behaviour before? Anyone know what causes it? Anyone know if its possible to remedy somehow?

I suppose this behaviour could be if the IRQ/Routing part of the card still is running but the EMU10k1 is burnt. Perhaps there is a remote chance that some broken digital control is defunct and causes this error. Some soldering could perhaps circumvent that.

Ah well. I have no great hopes. Its the computer life. One kill stuff and buy new. But I dont know if my own clumsiness or Creatives stupidity is worse. This for putting such dangerouns pins that exposed on the edge of the card. With no protective material whatsoever. One might think its ok for a budget card like mine. But Creative have the same stupid design on Audigy Retail cards.

*sulkingly suffers through mp3's with his borrowed CMI8738 extra-distortion soundcard*

evil_one · Aug 28, 2003, 03:24 PM

Uhm, actually, the CMI's sound can't be much (if at all) worse than Live's Sigmatel DAC. As for repair - the emu10k1 chip is most likely burnt.

Yomat · Aug 29, 2003, 05:07 AM

Too bad that I found out this late that Rear Out is that much better sound quality on SBLive. I found the info when trying to find out what was wrong with the card. :P

The CMI? I havent seen any RightMark or subjective listening tests that said it had good quality sound.

The dynamics is allright.. but I guess the chip is too cheap. Its placed on crappy boards like the one I have now, which design causes alot of distortion and noise.

Ah well. I might buy a new Live. I cant live with anything worse, at least. Any suggestions? Been looking at Hercules Fortissimo III. But it seems somewhat bland for analog playback (wave), which is mostly what I use the card for. I dont need octa-multi-mass speaker hardware accelerated systems. Just good solid sound so I can enjoy my mp3's, divx movies, dvd movies and the occasional warcraft3 bout. My sensitive hearing (although tone-deaf) wont tolerate too many artifacts. The SBLive cracks and snaps was on the border for me.

I'd like to stay clear of Creative.. but if someone can convince me that Audigy1 or 2 is the best thing for me.. I might go for one.

Terratec Sky 5.1 might work too. Envy24HT chipset seems nice. The most expensive of the possibilites though.

jkayca2 · Aug 29, 2003, 12:17 PM

The Fortissimo III is a budget card so I wouldn't expect the same sound quality as the Audigy line. You can get an Audigy 2 OEM for about the same price as the retail Fortissimo. I don't know what the exact difference is between the retail and OEM versions of the Audigy. I suspect its just software bundling

evil_one · Aug 29, 2003, 10:19 PM

I recommend a Prodigy 7.1. Excellent all round sound card.

I've actually seen reports stating that the CMI based boards (yes, the cheap crap ones) are about equal in analog out quality to an Audigy1.

Yomat · Aug 31, 2003, 01:58 AM

Yes. CMI9738 is probably a good chip. Epox uses it on their motherboard instead of the much more common motherboard chip: Realtek AL650 .

But my current cheapass soundcard has CMI8738 .. see.. there is a difference. 8 and 9.

I looked at the schematics of the CMI8738. As with SBLive the Rear Out takes another path. And there is a I/O code for swapping channels. But there is nothing in the driver utils to do this.

There is also som Xgear 3D function that is supposed to be specifically for headphone 3D sound. I can find no info about it though. There is just a setting for it in the driver tools.

Judas · Aug 31, 2003, 02:09 AM

The fortissimo 3 cards are excellent.... wins vs the audigy 2

there are multiple version of the 7.1 cards.... i'm running the Digifire 7.1 (bought it for $129 canadian when it first came out... the forissimo was only $79 at that time... so they are even cheaper today)

These cards are amazing... I'm pretty picky when it comes to sounds quality... right down to the non distorted lows up to the nice zizzling sound of a violin across the highs.... I hooked up a 3000 watt amplified system to the digifire i have and.... it came out crystal clear...

Creative is overpriced... and lacking in truthful features....

The only difference between the fortissimo and the digifure 7.1's is that the digifire comes with a larger bundle of software and a few other bonus hardware features such as extra Firewire ports both externally and internally....

The card is slick in terms of drives... Games, are excellent... support is there... i have NEVER heard of a problem with any game with this thing... I recommend you visit http://www.hercules.com/ before making a final disicion on it... view the faqs on it .... go to the forum...

DVD wise.... this thing pumps out the audio so extremely well... i can't recommend anything else if you want a card that's better then a audigy 2's or even the extigy..... for cheap....

Judas · Aug 31, 2003, 02:12 AM

BTW, i've ran multiple configureations of of my digifire

I ran 2 speaker setup with 2 Dual High output 600 watt Subwoofers.... excellent

Ran headphones.... i'd recommend headphones with volume controll on the jacks cord

4 speaker mode..... excellent stereo and 5.1 through 4.1 sound

5.1 and 6.1

7.1 is excellent ...full controll of the sounds still...

The only fault i've ever seen is that the the furthest 2 back speakers produce the near exact same sound...

so in technicallity, 6.1 vs 7.1 isn't a large deal in a very small room... 7.1 is a benifit for clarity...

RIV@NVX · Sep 1, 2003, 03:11 PM

Yomat: just an idea, but have you tried kX drivers? They handle broken cards much better than Creative's ones usually.

Yomat · Sep 2, 2003, 01:15 AM

Judas: Thanks for the input, man.

I'll consider the Fortissimo properly now.

Quote:

Originally posted by RIV@NVX
Yomat: just an idea, but have you tried kX drivers? They handle broken cards much better than Creative's ones usually.

No. I dont think I have. But I thought it was shot since it froze in XP, w2k and Linux. Therefore I didnt even bother to try kX. I'll do that.

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · Sep 21, 2003, 09:01 PM

i never will put anything but a creative sound card in my system, eax 4.0 and all. PC World mag was doing testing audigy 2 plat came out top. but id go audigy 2 oem, i can't be happier with this card for the price.

Aug 28, 2003, 03:35 AM	#1
Yomat DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0	Is my SBLive dead beyond repair? Hoyo. I accidentally shorted several of the AUX_EXT pins on my SBLive Value the other week. After that the machine locks/freezes every time I try to do anything with the card. I've tried this on another machine with the same results. Although the card gets detected by w2k as a media device. But after I install drivers, depending on the driver, the card freezes the machine at install time or in boot. Anone seen this behaviour before? Anyone know what causes it? Anyone know if its possible to remedy somehow? I suppose this behaviour could be if the IRQ/Routing part of the card still is running but the EMU10k1 is burnt. Perhaps there is a remote chance that some broken digital control is defunct and causes this error. Some soldering could perhaps circumvent that. Ah well. I have no great hopes. Its the computer life. One kill stuff and buy new. But I dont know if my own clumsiness or Creatives stupidity is worse. This for putting such dangerouns pins that exposed on the edge of the card. With no protective material whatsoever. One might think its ok for a budget card like mine. But Creative have the same stupid design on Audigy Retail cards. sulkingly suffers through mp3's with his borrowed CMI8738 extra-distortion soundcard

Aug 29, 2003, 12:17 PM	#4
jkayca2 DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 379 Rep Power: 0	The Fortissimo III is a budget card so I wouldn't expect the same sound quality as the Audigy line. You can get an Audigy 2 OEM for about the same price as the retail Fortissimo. I don't know what the exact difference is between the retail and OEM versions of the Audigy. I suspect its just software bundling __________________ [color=Blue]PNY Verto GeFORCE 6800GT AGP 256MB DDR3 - 1 GHz Win XP Pro (SP 2) - Directx 9.0c Intel P4 2.8C GHz - Abit IS7 Mobo 2x512 + 2x1024 MB PC 3200 DDR WD 74 GB Raptor + WD 120 GB HD with 8 MB Cache Hercules Gamesurround Fortissmo 7.1 Logitech Z5500 Speaker System Leadtek WinFast TV 2000 XP Deluxe LG GSA-4160B DVD Burner Logitech LX700 Keyb, mouse combo Mitsubishi DiamondPro 2070SB 22" CRT[/color]

Sep 1, 2003, 03:11 PM	#9
RIV@NVX Freedom is a feature. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Croatia, Rijeka Posts: 4,476 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Yomat: just an idea, but have you tried kX drivers? They handle broken cards much better than Creative's ones usually. __________________ -- Vedran

Sep 21, 2003, 09:01 PM	#11
BiGBrOwNPimpsta HH's #1 Hustla and Pimp Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The Dirty Dot Posts: 7,717 Rep Power: 107 System Specs	i never will put anything but a creative sound card in my system, eax 4.0 and all. PC World mag was doing testing audigy 2 plat came out top. but id go audigy 2 oem, i can't be happier with this card for the price. __________________ Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music \| Logitech Z-5500 THX 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers \| 2 Lite-On 20x S-ATA Burners \| Logitech G700 Mouse \| Logitech MX5500 Bluetooth Keyboard

Aug 28, 2003, 03:24 PM	#2
evil_one DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 109 Rep Power: 0	Uhm, actually, the CMI's sound can't be much (if at all) worse than Live's Sigmatel DAC. As for repair - the emu10k1 chip is most likely burnt.

Aug 29, 2003, 05:07 AM	Thread Starter #3
Yomat DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0	Too bad that I found out this late that Rear Out is that much better sound quality on SBLive. I found the info when trying to find out what was wrong with the card. :P The CMI? I havent seen any RightMark or subjective listening tests that said it had good quality sound. The dynamics is allright.. but I guess the chip is too cheap. Its placed on crappy boards like the one I have now, which design causes alot of distortion and noise. Ah well. I might buy a new Live. I cant live with anything worse, at least. Any suggestions? Been looking at Hercules Fortissimo III. But it seems somewhat bland for analog playback (wave), which is mostly what I use the card for. I dont need octa-multi-mass speaker hardware accelerated systems. Just good solid sound so I can enjoy my mp3's, divx movies, dvd movies and the occasional warcraft3 bout. My sensitive hearing (although tone-deaf) wont tolerate too many artifacts. The SBLive cracks and snaps was on the border for me. I'd like to stay clear of Creative.. but if someone can convince me that Audigy1 or 2 is the best thing for me.. I might go for one. Terratec Sky 5.1 might work too. Envy24HT chipset seems nice. The most expensive of the possibilites though.

Aug 29, 2003, 10:19 PM	#5
evil_one DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 109 Rep Power: 0	I recommend a Prodigy 7.1. Excellent all round sound card. I've actually seen reports stating that the CMI based boards (yes, the cheap crap ones) are about equal in analog out quality to an Audigy1.

Aug 31, 2003, 01:58 AM	Thread Starter #6
Yomat DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0	Yes. CMI9738 is probably a good chip. Epox uses it on their motherboard instead of the much more common motherboard chip: Realtek AL650 . But my current cheapass soundcard has CMI8738 .. see.. there is a difference. 8 and 9. I looked at the schematics of the CMI8738. As with SBLive the Rear Out takes another path. And there is a I/O code for swapping channels. But there is nothing in the driver utils to do this. There is also som Xgear 3D function that is supposed to be specifically for headphone 3D sound. I can find no info about it though. There is just a setting for it in the driver tools.