Creative Sound Blaster

[Michael]

I have a Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value soundcard which was working fine on my WinXP machine all the while.
Recently the output sound quality has become noisy, thus I suspect the soundcard is failing. I got another soundcard to test on my computer and it was proven that the Creative one is failing.
But as I put back the Creative soundcard, the Win XP detected it as a new hardware but yet couldn't find any driver for it. I tried to run the driver installer downloaded long ago but it didn't work - no Creative soundcard was detected. Get the latest driver from Creative but still same. Read through the forum in Creative site and found out that many users are facing the same problem even with a new soundcard. Tried to email the Support team but my card is out of warranty and they don't provide support anymore.
Tried to extract the driver from the installer and install manually but Windows frozen during the logo page. Remove the soundcard and Windows works fine again.
Anyone has any idea?
I don't remember I had any problem installing it long ago...

[Mac]

The driver I have for my Creative Sound Blaster Card is LiveDrvUni-Pack(ENG).exe

Is this the same one that you are using?

DRIVERS

[Michael]

That is the one that I tried to install but it returned "...no Creative soundcard is detected....

Anyway, it is working fine now...(wonder why? me too!)
I was just take out the card to try on another computer, but before I got to do that, I put back the card and this time Windows could detect it and install the driver by itself. After that, I was able to install the LiveDriverPack driver...and strangely, the "noise" has gone this time...the soundcard is working perfectly again...

I am really curious and couldn't understand what was happening...defective?  

[patio]

There could have been dust bunnies on the card and or in the slot that got dislodged from pulling and re-seating it 2 or 3 times...
I've seen stranger things, Believe Me !

patio.  

[Mac]

That is the one that I tried to install but it returned "...no Creative soundcard is detected....

Anyway, it is working fine now...(wonder why? me too!)
I was just take out the card to try on another computer, but before I got to do that, I put back the card and this time Windows could detect it and install the driver by itself. After that, I was able to install the LiveDriverPack driver...and strangely, the "noise" has gone this time...the soundcard is working perfectly again...

I am really curious and couldn't understand what was happening...defective?

Probably the contacts faces needed to be cleaned up simply by the action of removing and replacing the card. It it often the case with RAM modules too that re-seating the card or module has the effect of making a better contact.

Some assemblies are so sloppily done that cards have been known to fall out of the motherboard, one of the problems with towers. With the older computers the mainboard was on the bottom of the case, as if you lay your tower on its right side, and gravity kept the card in place.

It seems that a lot of this sort of shaking loose happens in the transit of the goods to the shops.

My own Creative Sound card fell out of the mainboard as there was no retaining screw fitted.

[Fed]

My contacts never deteriorate, they are hermetically sealed with cigarette smoke & coffee fumes.  

[Mac]

I used to use a product called ElectroLube for electrical contacts (Power Generation) but I don't see it over here.

[patio]

My contacts never deteriorate, they are hermetically sealed with cigarette smoke & coffee fumes.  

patio.