Audigy 2 Lock Ups -- How to Solve

[C3PO]

If you are experiencing lock-ups with your Audigy 2 card, I may have the solution.

The vast majority are caused by the Audigy 2 sharing an IRQ with another device, typically your video card.

In my case it was sharing an IRQ with my Radeon 9700 Pro, and it was a nightmare two weeks of lock ups, freezes and problems.

I tried everything in the BIOS to change things around and swapped the cards into more slots than I care to remember. Nothing for me was working. Reassigning IRQs didn't work. You name it, I tried it.

The following method succeeded WITHOUT the need to reinstall windows, which can be a major headache. I hope it proves useful to other users.

1. Remove the Creative Audigy 2 sound card from PCI slot
2. Reboot to windows
3. Shutdown
4. Insert Audigy 2 soundcard into PCI slot not shared with another slot.
5. Reboot to BIOS
6. Under "Plug and Play OS" select NO
7. Reboot to Windows
8. You're done!

Check what IRQs are being shared in your device manager tab and you should find that they are now on seperate IRQs.

[RamonGTP]

Thanks for the tip, not having any of those issues but if I come accross it i'll know how to fix it now... BTW, what motherboard are you using?

[C3PO]

Originally posted by RamonGTP
Thanks for the tip, not having any of those issues but if I come accross it i'll know how to fix it now... BTW, what motherboard are you using?

It is an ageing QDI Legend Kudoz 7E 333 Mobo...not the best that I have had, which reminds me of another tip: always stick with Asus

[RamonGTP]

Ha, to each his own on that ASUS comment, but ASUS has left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to AMD based boards... Every ASUS board i've used or owned (about 4 or 5) had one issue or another... I hear good things about their Intel boards though, but no personal expierence with that.

[narticus]

Not sure how to do #5: Restarting in BIOS mode. How do I do that? I'm not too tech savvy. Please help, this audigy 2 card is killing me.