Audigy2 ZS causes freezes in PowerDVD after fast forward

[BJBBJB]

The folks in software players did not have any input, but perhaps the audio section does.

I am having a problem with PowerDVD freezing now that I have installed an Audigy 2 ZS.

It is in a Dell XPS which previously had a Dell OEM Audigy 2. I wanted the breakout box and some of the extra features so opted to install the retail zs.

I properly uninstalled the old, ran ctzapp, installed the new card and drivers and it worked fine with regular audio. However when using SPDIF out from PowerDVD (and using the creative DD decoding which is what I wanted), PowerDVD hard-freezes the system after fast forwarding, and hitting play. Or skipping a track ahead sometimes. No three finger salute working here, hard reboot.

Creative suggested trying a different PCI slot, which I did. It still freezes. You can let it just play, and it will not freeze....audio might skip a bit at first, but then seems to play through. Using software player decoding seems to work fine.

Windows media player also froze. Regular wav sounds and cd's seem fine. I am running an ATI 9800 Pro (latest drivers) with a 3ghz proc and 1gig of mem. It is an OEM Intel Mboard. DirectX 9b, dxdiag says all is fine.

I have one more PCI slot to use and try... I have 4 and nothing else plugged into PCI! First slot XP grabbed IRQ 22, now it is on 17. The sys report "says" that there is nothing else using that IRQ but I understand that over 12 it is all virtual IRQ land and hard to tell. I mean there are other IRQ's below 12 open but XP is not grabbing.

Of course I am assuming the issue is an IRQ issue. Any other suggestions from others that might have seen this issue? Bottom line I would like to be able to use SPDIF out from the player and utilize the Audigy 2 decoding and settings.

I have not upgraded to the EAX4 drivers as I do not care about EAX 4 right now, and I did not see a fix for this issue listed. Worse, I saw one post where the EAX4 driver made SPDIF out problems WORSE!!! However, to rule out possibilities, I may try the upgraded drivers regardless, can always go back.

I am also going to try are uninstalling PowerDVD and trying a different player.


Thanks in advance for any suggestions or prior experience with this issue. Going on 2 weeks for me....
BJBBJB

[Rainey]

Interesting, I have the Same PC and was thinking of the same upgrade.

Altough i have done a clean install and have not keep most of the Dell software, Not sure what you have done but you may want to try that.
Are you running the Dell version of PowerDVD as it was made to work with the Dell OEM card and it has Registy tweaks for Software DD decoding NOT hardware. Also how about Dell media Experance, is that still loaded. To much to type about the Dell software tweaks.

I would do a clean install of XP and run a real version or PowerDVD or any other DVD player for that mater and then let us know what happens.

I the big question is did it solve the Noise problem in the Headphone/MIC Jack or do you still have that problem in the ZS console jacks.

[BJBBJB]

Rainey,

Good tip on the Dell PowerDVD player. I know it "looked like" version 4 based on the readme, but the file version is 3.x something. It did have the SPDIF out setting so I thought that should work. I was thinking about trying a retail DVD player and your comment leads me to believe that may be the next best step.

The only thing that might say the Dell PowerDVD is not the issue is the Windows media player freezes also. However, I would not be surprised if WMP and PowerDVD shared some settings...

I am not running the Dell Media Experience and my PC did not come with it.

I will let you know about the headphone jack. I have had so much frustration with this, I have not had a chance to actually use the thing...

I do have an image of the machine as shipped, and could rebuild from scratch if I have to. I just have everything else working and it would be nice to just fix this and move forward.

If you have the registry tweaks documented it might help just in case the PowerDVD uninstall does not flip them back. I am pretty comfortable working in the registry.

Thanks,


BJB