ECS K7VZA & SB Live

[bujin]

Does anybody have this combination? I have an ECS EliteGroup k7vza motherboard with an SB Live! Value sound card. I've been having problems for the last few months that have even stumped technical support at Creative.

After months of trying everything from formatting HD, updating drivers, changing DirectX version, moving the sound card to different PCI slots, and more, I have come to the conclusion that there is an incompatibility between the sound card and the motherboard.

I have the following system:

ECS k7vza motherboard
AMD Athlon 1GHz chip
320Mb PC133 RAM
Sound Blaster Live! Value soundcard
Voodoo3 3000 AGP graphics

I have tried the same soundcard in a different computer (Intel P200MMX) and there was no problem. I have a friend with a 1.1GHz AMD chip, but using a different motherboard (Can't remember which) and he reports no problems.

The problem is that in playing games with 3D sound, such as Thief, Deus Ex, and occasionally games that have a 'hardware sound' option, such as the Desperados demo and Rogue Spear, that after a few minutes play, I lose the sound from the game and get a high pitched whine from the speakers or headphones. I then have to restart the computer to get any sound back. Occasionally, the computer also hangs when I try to restart after the problem, and I have to use the reset switch to reboot.

Is there ANYONE in the world who has had the same problem? Or is there anyone who has the same or similar hardware setup and reports no problems?

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks

 

[bujin]

I'll take that as a 'no' then, shall I?

 

[bujin]

For anyone who is interested, I FINALLY fixed this problem last weekend. Not bad - it took me just 5 and a bit months to find out that all I had to do was update the BIOS.