Audigy 2 fine for years then 'squeal of death'

[Uriel]

Oh dear. Just did a repair install of XP and it seems to have caused an annoying problem. To make matters worse - I didn't need to do it. Loose floppy cable messing up the boot sequence...

Anyway - I now have the infamous Creative 'Squeal of Death'. Found out when I tried playing Oblivion. It lets you play for a few minutes and then the sounds start to get replaced by a high pitched squealing noise from the speakers. Shortly afterwards the computer hard locks and needs a reboot. Before this I'd not had an in game crash for months. The problem doesn't seem to occur if you turn hardware acceleration on the Audigy 2 down.

Already tried game reinstall, directX reinstall, graphics and sound drivers reinstall + drivercleaner.

My number one suspect is a phantom 'bluetooth audio' device (I have no bluetooth device although one was used previously). It was shown in device manager prior to the repair install with an exclamation mark next to it. There's now no exclamation mark and I noticed it mentioned during XP's 'installing devices' stage. Going to try removing it in device manager.

Other possibile causes I'm considering are:
1) Inadequate PSU.
2) Replacing X1800XT with 8800GT (I doubt the first two - Crysis Demo was fine for hours on Saturday - prior to the repair install - with the 8800GT. I'll could test this by retrying Crysis to see if the problem occurs. The other alternative is to put the X1800XT back in there to see if that solves things).
3) The Audigy 2 is borked.

So - I'm going to try removing non-existant devices and checking carefully for IRQ conflicts when I get home. Also seeing if it affects Crysis (if it's unaffected - that would open the possibility that the problem stems from installing the 8800GT). Any other simple suggestions would be welcome.

After that, it's onto the more drastic options (clean O/S install, testing different hardware combinations) Other suggestions are welcome, particularly if you've managed to solve a similar problem.

I have a new hard drive on its way so I might try a clean install on that when it turns up, but I had been hoping to just clone the existing one with Norton Ghost.

Edit: Bah! Resorted to onboard audio as a temporary solution. Doesn't sound great.

 

[FatRakoon]

If its any help mate, I have suddenly lost the ability to play any 5.1 Audio anymore with my ZS ?

I threw in the old Audigy 1 and thats fine, as was the Onboard rubbish, and even more annoying, is that I tried this ZS upstairs and it gave me 5.1 just fine up there!!!

I could swap them, but the DriveBay thingy is black with the ZS and white upstairs and the whole PC here is all black, so thats not an option

So, why has it stopped working on this PC I dont know but it has???

I have tried reinstalling and a few other things but nope.... I got normal Left/Right and that works just fine???

Go figure?

 

[Uriel]

Have since used the PC with a Club3D Theatron DD and X-Fi XtremeMusic. Both work perfectly. I also changed the PSU from a Hiper Type R 480w to a Corsair HX520 prior to trying either card.

I half suspect that the 'squeal of death' may have been power related (maybe too much 'ripple' on the 3v or 5v rail?) but don't have time to test it. At some point soon I'll be doing a spare parts build as a HTPC (or something for multiplayer battlefield when we have guests) and will probably test the Audigy 2 in it (just to see if it works).