Sound blaster Z Keeps Vanishing

Relentless81 · 21 Apr 2017 at 07:03

Hi

I have a Sound Blaster Z sound card installed to PCIE1 slot on Gigabyte B350, it worked absolutely fine on my previous board and installs and works fine on this board until cold boot at which point the device disappears, it can be seen in device manager but it not an available audio device

If I remove the card from the slot and re-install it the device is available again until the next time I cold boot the system and the device disappears again effectively meaning I have to physically remove and reinstall the card every time I want to game.

Has anyone had a similar issue? I know the card is fine, seems to be the mother board so tempted to sell it and go external.

Previously I used 970A-UD3 motherboard with the same card in the same slot and this issue was not present.

Thanks

rids57 · 21 Apr 2017 at 07:33

I've had the same thing happen with an Asus Xonar DGX and a PowerColor HDX and in both cases the cards eventually went faulty and disappeared for good.

Relentless81 · 21 Apr 2017 at 08:06

ah ok, it might still be under warranty might raise a ticket with creative. Seems odd that it worked fine in the last motherboard though and works fine once reseated in this one until the next cold boot at which point it completely disappears

Relentless81 · 21 Apr 2017 at 17:18

Creating a support request with Creative is grim.

Marsman · 21 Apr 2017 at 18:16

Yeah, I've heard that their support is pretty bad. After a quick search, on one website, out of 100 or so comments about their customer service only 10 were positive....

Relentless81 · 21 Apr 2017 at 21:07

Its impossible to even raise a request, their site wont accept the serial number and you cant progress further. I've managed to send a webform on a different part of the site but didnt get any email confirmation

I bought it from OCUK and its within a year old by 3 weeks, can OCUK do anything?

Marsman · 21 Apr 2017 at 22:41

Worth a try.

Don't suppose you have access to another PC to test it in, see if it does the same?

Armadillo · 21 Apr 2017 at 23:25

I don't think there's anything wrong with the card, I think it's just a hardware gremlin that effects certain setups for some reason. I think it's losing it's hardware id, searching it seems to be a farily common issue with the SBZ.

Mine does it on my X99 system, except luckily for me it's only when I go into the bios, make a change and save, more often than not, the card will be gone when I get to windows. A power cycle always cures it for me though. Don't have to unplug it.

Relentless81 · 22 Apr 2017 at 06:55

No other PC to test unfortunately. Armadillo yeah googling reveals lots of similar issues but dont feel comfortable selling it on not being 100% sure. I'm going to try and see if OCUK can assist.

liveid · 22 Apr 2017 at 19:29

you dont mention trying another pci-e slot, worth a try, any size the same or bigger will do

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2017 at 08:13

Tried it in PCIEX3 and it didnt pick it up at all, put it back in PCIEX1 and it picked it up and it worked fine until next cold boot and it disappeared again

Marsman · 23 Apr 2017 at 11:06

Should work in any, so that could be indication that there's not a fault with the card, but some compatibility issue.

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2017 at 15:06

I tried it again in PCIEX3 and it worked fine until the next cold boot. Not sure why it didnt work the first time. I'm just going to use on board for now and see if I can test the card in another computer at work or something so I can sell it.