SB Audigy, not worth the hassle
Written: Jan 08 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Soundblaster name, firewire port, excellent spatial sound effects
Cons: Poor tech support, potential headache installation
The Bottom Line: Be absolutely certain that you computer will run with this board. At least try the latest drivers from the web but if that don't work take it back immediately.
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| ianc4262's Full Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer Sound Car... |
I've owned a number of SB cards over the years and never had any issues. Creative are still the gold standard for soundcards but their recent two offerings SB Live and Audigy have presented many more hardware problems than I've come to expect from what I considered to be a leading company.
I have an 1 gig Athlon system on a MSI motherboard. I wanted to upgrade from the integrated sound system so initially purchased a SB LIve from a local store. After about a week of shear frustration and about 9 reinstallations of my operating system I couldn't get the card to work. Since the store had a very stingy return policy I took the card back after 6 days only to be told that it was known that the SBLive could have issues just as I'd experienced.
The recommendation was to get the Audigy as that was what the store in question had gone over to installing on all their systems. Like a sucker I fell for it.
To cut the litany of problems short I could not get this board to run at the same time as my video board, a Geforce2 GTS. The Audigy installation had nothing but trouble even over a clean windows installation but with a few tricks I was able to get it up and running, but as soon as I installed the video board drivers the problems started. Creative tech support was no help at all, but they do have a pretty good news server that allows other users to chime in on their experiences. Given there was over 6000 msgs the first time I check I had a suspicsion there was a problem here.
In short I've been very disappointed with my experience with this card. Even the store I got it, and my computer, from can't get it to work and they say it should. Of course their default suggest is to upgrade the MB or video card, after all it isn't their money that is getting spent.
Now I will say that when I went and installed the card in my daughter's PIII 550 system it installed flawlessly without a hitch. Read what you will into this.
From what I've seen on bulletin boards elsewhere it seems if you have a motherboard with a VIA chipset you'd best install and run this board under WinXP as most people seem to have better luck with that configuration, though the provided install disk doesn't have XP drivers.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 80
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Epinions.com ID:
ianc4262
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Member: Ian Clements
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Reviews written: 46
Trusted by: 2 members
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