Is my soundcard killing me?

[GeezerHT]

Hello;

New member here and my first post.
I recently joined as I love the website!
A great place for info, reviews etc...

I'm hoping for some help/input with a problem I have.
I have a new comp with a Asus Rampage 2 MB with onboard Supreme FX XFi soundcard.
While playing Left For Dead 2 My comp will often freeze up requiring a reset.
Things will be running smoothly then the sound stutters, repeats and the screen goes blank:(

Could this be caused by the software based Supreme?
I believe all my comp drivers are up to date.
Should I get a new soundcard? If so then I'd probably get a Asus D2x.
Then my concern would be it fitting in the pci-e slot under the two Sapphire 5870 gpu's I have?
Anyone have a similar setup?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as I'm not the most computer savy gamer out there.
I play them well, I just can't fix em.

THX

Geezer

[Arinoth]

Is the system overclocked at all, it could be the north bridge overheating and then causing the motherboard to restart. Have you tried running the game with no sound and/or removing the sound drivers to see if this is actually the culprit.

If you want to go with the new sound card route you may be able to put the sound card in the far off third pci-e slot near the edge of the board however i would wait for confirmation from others before assuming you can put it there (pretty sure all pci-e slots, the short and long ones are the 'same' when it comes with a pci-e short sound card). It also states it has 2 PCI-E slots that support a PCI-E sound card.

[jcmaz]

i don't think its a sound problem. What are the temps of the 5870 when it crashes?

[b1lk1]

Easy test. Pull it out and play without it. If it still does it then it is obviously something else.

[GeezerHT]

Thx for your replies.
Temps on the 5870 usually are around 80'C top card, bottom card cooler. The hottest I've seen it is 85'C.
Sapphire says it's good to 92'C. Can't say for sure what crash temps are.
System is not overclocked. I have PC Probe 2 running and no alarms have been tripped at default settings.
I'll try removing the Supreme card. Stupid question.....will I still get sound with it's removal?

I've made a correction to my original post.....pci should have read pci-e.

Thx

Geezer

[YukonTrooper]

The chances of the problem being the sound-card are slim. First thing I'd do is check your memory.

[GeezerHT]

Good call and done.
Spoke to the store I bought from and they suggested that aswell.
So 2.5 hrs later zero errors.

He thought if that checked out it might be soundcard related?

The plot thickens................

[YukonTrooper]

Try taking the sound-card out and use on-board sound for awhile.

[GeezerHT]

Haven't taken the card out yet.
Last night I had no problems at all, played a few times for a couple hours(total).
The night before it messed up 5 times after various times of game play?

Geezer

[Jackquelegs]

Sound repeating and such sounds like a complete driver crash. I've had some when I did not install the drivers correctly, or when the graphic card itself has some operational problems. Even RAM problems could be considered.

I suggest testing your system for instabilities thoroughly (even if you haven't overclocked anything, as RAM could be hit/miss)

Also...the SupremeFX X-fi is just a emulator for X-fi features, not a true X-fi processor.

Usually when my vid card overheats it will just stop rendering, and drivers will recover.