Page 1 of No sound after installing Radeon 9800 Pro EZ

I`ve always considered myself a fairly competent engineer, but this is starting to p*** me off now. I`ve just replaced my aged Ti4800SE with a not quite so aged PowerColor 9800 Pro EZ, but after the install I`m getting no sound from my Audigy 2. I reverted to the GeForce card and - as if by magic - the sound came back. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem could be? I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be power related, but I do have a 400Watt PSU with reasonable voltage rails. Any insight/help much appreciated. My system spec is:

Athlon 3000+
ASUS A7N8X mobo
1GB PC2700 RAM
PowerColor 9800 Pro EZ 128MB
Audigy 2
16x DVD-Rom
Pioneer 106
2x Maxtor HDD

I've not heard of any issues with the mobo/video combination, and Google reveals nothing helpful. I should really sleep on it as I've spent a few hours trying to narrow it down, but to no avail. I even went as far as to unplug everything except the video, audio and primary HDD, but still no luck…

Does Device manager show any problems?


shot in the dark here but have you tried moving the Audigy 2 to a
different pci slot (creating maximum distance away from video card)

This item was edited on Saturday, 28th August 2004, 02:30

Nah, no issues in DM. I`ve tried different PCI slots for the Audigy with no luck, and it was in PCI 5 to begin with. I`m a pretty decent PC engineer and I have to say this is the first time I`ve encountered anything quite like this (perhaps I`ve been lucky). Thing is, I`ve built machines for people to a similar spec with only 300W PSUs, and they haven`t had any problems (which kind of blows my PSU theory away). The loss of sound is definitely related to the Radeon, but I just don`t know why at the moment. As you can see, it`s keeping me up (I hate it when things get the better of me). I should sleep on it I guess.

Actually, I guess the card *could* be faulty, but that`s a long shot. I`m a little annoyed anyway, as although I knew it was the cut down 128-bit version the specs on the retailer`s website quoted 380/340MHz speeds for core and RAM. When I checked the thing with Everest it actually runs at 350/350. I can overclock the core to 380-390, but I shouldn`t have to. Odd thing is, the box actually says the card is 400/400!!! I now get a 3DMark of 14501 as opposed to around a 10000 using defaults (with the card O/C to proper 9800 Pro levels), which I know isn`t as good as a 256-bit 9800 Pro would get, but it`l do me if only I could get sound!

I guess I have a case for a full refund under the DSR as the card isn`t as specified on the website, but this could be shakey ground.

can you try the video and sound card on a mates computer, if nothing else would rule out a motherboard issue.

I myself have a audigy2 and gigabyte 9700 pro and have no problems playing sound

Have you looked at creative labs forum - they may be able to help.

http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/forums/welcome.asp

I`ve now sorted the sound issue. A while back my mobo threw a wobbly and decided to set itself back to default settings. When I reconfigured it I never disabled the onboard soft audio, which didn`t cause a problem with the Audigy 2 and GeForce card, but with the Radeon it led to no sound whatsoever. Disabled it, and it`s now ok.

Unfortunately the card is going back anyway as it`s not what was advertised. There`s a pretty big difference between a 350 and a 380 core speed!

Your 3dmarks (2001 i assume) were not much better than i get with the exact same system using my old overclocked gf4 4200. And i suppose your 4800 too.

With a very similar system my mate gets about 18000 with his pro.

Aye. I phoned the company yesterday and told them that it was only clocked at 350/350, and they were not convinced. I`ve since sent them screen caps from ATITool and Everest showing the default speed quite clearly. It`s also a different card to the one pictured on the site (heatsink is blck plastic instead of metal). I can see no reason why they would be able to refuse a refund under the Distance Selling Regs. In fact, as the good are not as described, I think I should be entitled to a full refund including the shipping costs both ways.

An update for anyone thinking of buying from Gladiator. They have agreed to take the card back, but will not pay the return postage as is required under law when an item is not as described. They claim that it`s PowerColor`s fault and that as they copied the specs from their website they cannot be held responsible. No amount of me telling them that they should have checked the specs themselves, or that it`s their legal obligation to pay the carriage made any difference.

It`s hardly worth taking them to small claims court over something so trivial, but I am left with a bad taste in my mouth as will have to pay a total of around a tenner`s worth of postage for what basically amounts to nothing. A decent company (such as CD-Wow) would have offered to arrange return carriage for me. Although i did speak to the manager I wasn`t able to get across everything I wanted to on the phone at work (including links to the legislation in question), so I`m going to send them an email voicing my displeasure. For the sake of £6 or so they`ve lost any future custom from me.

The best (or worst) thing is that their website has now been magically altered to remove all trace of the incorrect specifications, so were I to challenge it...