Audigy 2 ZS EAX console trouble

[Spyder Veteran]

hey guys..just wondering if anyone has ever run into this.. running the latest drivers and software patches from soundblaster.com. If I try to right click the creative volume tray icon and pick EAX console, i get the error below. "EAX Console - The Audio Device Supported by this application is not detected. The application will exit." If I launch the EAX console from one of the other apps, from the start menu, or even from the exe itself, it works fine. Sound works okay too. However this one instance doesn't work. Here's the kicker.. it WAS working!

What I've tried so far:

- reinstalling the EAX Console update

/edit... - tried reinstalling driver update

Anyone know whats going on here? Much appreciated.

[Spyder Veteran]

this is actually kind of disappointing. Troubleshooting threads like these used to be jumped on by Neowinians.

I guess you need a "how do I ask a girl out?" thread to get replies because it doesn't seem there are any techy people left. All the dumb threads must've sent them elsewhere.

[Veedems Veteran]

Or maybe people just don't have a clue on what could be wrong.

[Spyder Veteran]

thats definately a possibility. But so is mine. :(

[Veedems Veteran]

well did you do anything before it suddenly stopped? Have you trried system restoring or even completely removing everything and re-installing from the original CD.

[Spyder Veteran]

Nope. I just went through a 2nd complete format and checked after every driver and program installation. It worked through everything, then a few hours later after doing absolutely nothing other than surfing the web, it just started throwing that error up consistantly.

here's my most recent reply to creative tech support that might give a better indication as to what I've tried..

Hello, thank you for your reply.

I do have onboard sound but I disabled it a long time ago. I've checked to make sure that?s still the case and it is.? I had no previous sound installed prior to this. It was a fresh install of a slipstreamed Windows XP SP2.

Prior to my fresh install of Windows, I had SP1 with the same programs and drivers. The only 2 things that have changed are:

1) Newer Audigy 2 ZS drivers from soundblaster.com

2) Windows XP Service Pack 2

I thought I'd try formatting my system again yesterday to try to resolve this and troubleshoot exactly when the error starts to occur.? First thing after installing Windows, I installed the Audigy 2 ZS drivers and programs.? EAX Console didn?t give me errors.? There on out, I tested the EAX Console after every driver and program install.? EAX Console worked without a problem after I installed everything I needed. Then randomly, 4 or 5 hours later, I started getting the error message again. There has been absolutely nothing done to the PC at this point (other than surfing the web) so there should be no reason why this should just start occurring out of the blue! Its left me completely baffled.

To reiterate, the EAX Control panel loads and operates correctly if..

a) I launch it from its shortcut in start menu

b) I launch it from its EXE from its installed folder

c) I launch it using its shortcut icon in the other Creative applications.

The absolute only scenario that gives an error is if I right click the Creative System Volume icon in the system tray (ctsysvol.exe), and click on EAX Console.? Then I receive a dialog that says:

"The Audio Device Supported by this application is not detected. The application will exit"

My onboard sound has been disabled since I bought the Audigy 2 ZS a year ago and everything operated and functioned correctly. It's only now that I'm experiencing this issue with the newer Audigy 2 ZS drivers and/or Windows Service Pack 2.

I would rather not roll back to XP SP1 or an older soundblaster driver at this point. Could there be some sort of compatibility problem between CTSYSVOL.EXE and XP SP2 or perhaps the EAX Console and SP2?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

ps. thx for attemptin:)to help :)

/edit .. forgot to mention. on a sidenote, through all this troubleshooting, I discovered that the latest Nero InCD (4.3) causes a bluescreen when attempting to enter safe mode. Removing InCD 4.3 fixes th:)problem :)

[Veedems Veteran]

Hmmm, even with the default drivers it stopped working? I use the ones that came with the cd. I learned long ago never to go with every single creative update because their driver support is terrible.

[Spyder Veteran]

I'm not sure to be honest. I didn't wait long enough to try that scenario. I'm kind of chuffed because I know that to be complete in my troubleshooting, I should try the older drivers, but since this is my 2nd format, I'm sick of reinstalling everything. However, I've resigned myself to the fact that this is going to bug the hell out of me until I do that so I imagine I'll eventually get around to it.

[Veedems Veteran]

you don't need to reformat to reinstall it. Just remove everything from your system, use DriveCleaner to clean out the scraps, and then reinstall new.

[Spyder Veteran]

Actually I have tried that now that I think of it. In one of Creative's emails, they suggested going into Safe Mode and running CTZAPXX from the CD to completely remove the drivers and then uninstall all the apps. I did all that but it still didn't work. Even with the drivers from the CD, it still threw up the error. It was only after formatting and reinstalling windows did it work for a while before giving that error again. Thats why I was saying I was going to have format again. I'll get around to it eventually.

Thanks for the tips.

[Veedems Veteran]

Do you perhaps disable any kind of creative startup items via msconfig or whatnot?

[JimmyT]

I know I know!!! I can help you! :p

(or at least I think I can :s )

Well, from my experience with my SB Live, SB Audigy 1 and Audigy 2, when something like this happens, there is a conflict on your devices (and you can't see the conflict on the control panel).

All times I had this problem (the: audio device is not detected) I had to change pci port to my soundcard and find a port where the soundcard would work.

Weird, I know... Everything works and one day you wake up and there are problems out of nowhere, and you have to change your pci card positions. My guess is that "plug and play" engine decides that it has to change IRQ on your devices and creates conflicts.

Anyway, try that and right back. I hope this will work for you too, as it did for my 3 cards.

And yeah, where are all neowinians? That's very weird!

[Spyder Veteran]

@ bangbang .. nope. all startup items remain enabled :)

[Spyder Veteran]

I know I know!!! I can help you! :p

(or at least I think I can :s )

Well, from my experience with my SB Live, SB Audigy 1 and Audigy 2, when something like this happens, there is a conflict on your devices (and you can't see the conflict on the control panel).

All times I had this problem (the: audio device is not detected) I had to change pci port to my soundcard and find a port where the soundcard would work.

Weird, I know... Everything works and one day you wake up and there are problems out of nowhere, and you have to change your pci card positions. My guess is that "plug and play" engine decides that it has to change IRQ on your devices and creates conflicts.

Anyway, try that and right back. I hope this will work for you too, as it did for my 3 cards.

And yeah, where are all neowinians? That's very weird!

Now thats something I hadn't considered! :)

I just checked Device Manager but it reports no conflicts with the card. Screenshot below. I suppose I could try moving the card to a different slot, couldn't hurt. Thanks I'll eventually give that a shot.

[Spyder Veteran]

to be complete, here's my conflicts in System Information.

[JimmyT]

I've never seen a conflict on the control panel, but as soon as I changed pci port, it did work, that's why I told you that:

and you can't see the conflict on the control panel

Maybe the IRQ 20 is shared with another device but is not considered as a conflict, and soundblaster has another idea about sharing IRQs. I don't know.

Check my IRQs, Creative is sharing an IRQ with my RAID controller, and yet there is no problem. But it may wake up one day and ask for another IRQ in order to work. If I move my Audigy2 to the 3rd PCI it will be sharing the same IRQ as the Radeon and I'll get the same message. I've tried that when I got my radeon. And yet, the damn panel said NO CONFLICT.

[loc[a]lhost]

i have an Audigy2 with Audigy2 ZS drivers, and it works fine here...

[Spyder Veteran]

I read you wrong, my apologies. Here's my IRQ list. I'll try another slot soon. Thanks.

[JimmyT]

Another thing you could try is to get the softmoded audigy drivers where the device checking is disabled.

It is the utility used to allow the installation of Audigy2 ZS drivers to an Audigy2 card.

loc[a]lhost should know where to find the patch.

I used this method once, but I had trouble with the equalizer so I uninstalled them.

[bryonhowley]

The only way I found to solve that problem on my Systems was to disable APIC. But of course you would have to re-install Windows since the hal would be loading then. Since there are still only 16 IRQ channels 0-16 I am not completely sure what APIC does but My Audigy did not like it.

[JimmyT]

APIC extends IRQ range to 24 channels. Some times it causes trouble, some times it does miracles (ie when you have too many devices and 16 IRQs are not enough). Disabling it would be my last resort.

[bryonhowley]

APIC extends IRQ range to 24 channels. Some times it causes trouble, some times it does miracles (ie when you have too many devices and 16 IRQs are not enough). Disabling it would be my last resort.

Anything that requires a Re-Install would be a last resort. I was just sharing what solved My problem. I spent a lot of time in the MSI forums solving it.

[SimplyPotatoes]

spyder im sorry :( a very long time ago before i had my audigy 2 zs plat, i had an audigy 2 zs. this error came up after i decided not to format when i put in a new asus motherboard. everything ended up working except for some ethernet and audio issues. this same problem happened for me, except it happened right after i restarted from a fresh uninstall/reinstall of the CD drivers. i spent forever trying to figure out how to fix this. it was something very simple and made me even more upset when i found out what it was. i wish i could remember this :( maybe it will come to me in awhile.