Problems with new Xonar Phoebus

[coolasmoo]

Hi There

Just thought I would try here before I RMA the new Phoebus.

I installed the card, and while the sound quality is really good, even compared to my XFi, there is one thing that has been a real problem.

Punkbuster....

Loaded up BF3, and played about 20mins of a round of conquest and then got a lockup with sound looping. Had to hard reset to get back into Windows 7

Now this is the first time I have ever had this lockup as up until now, I have had my XFi installed and never had a lockup of this nature. So I thought I would try again, and within 10 mins I had the same lockup.

So I thought I would do a clean install of Windows and still had the problem.
Updated MB Bios
Changed PCI-E slots
Tried with all enhancements turned on and off in the sound card properties.
Lowered and raised the Hz
Reinstalled BF3 and Phoebus drivers
Updated Punkbuster.

The only way I can get the card not to lockup is by going on non Punkbuster servers.

So after a pretty rubbish weekend troubleshooting the problem and searching for answers, I have pulled the card and put back the XFi which works fine, even the on board sound worked fine aswell.

I'm running the Gigabyte Z77 UD5H and 2600K


Any ideas Raja?

[txfeinbergs]

Well, at least you took a thorough troubleshooting approach. 😄

I am sure there are going to be a few bugs that make it past QA since there is no way they can test all possible SW combinations. That and you are living on the bleeding edge since you are one of the first that have the thing. I am sure it will get fixed rather quickly since many people will probably start reporting it.

Unfortunately, I don't have my card yet, so I can't try BF3 on my end with it yet to see if I see the same thing.

[coolasmoo]

Yes, Its only for the fact that I have completely run out of ideas that I gave up 🙂

Im really hoping they have a new beta driver I can try or something because I really like the card.

[thegovernment]

I will have my card tomorrow and try it out. My current forte 7.1 has been nothing but awesome since I got it for games. Theres a good chance new drivers will fix it. Hopefully they will have something out soon.

[Graham]

i need help not sure if i should use the dolby settings or the game profile on xonar main window, to me playing metro last light sounds good even without using game mode, wish i could get some more insight on this .. like what i can enable or not enable i just want pure sound not any effects..

[Raja]

I will try and replicate on the R4E with Punkbuster and see what I get. Let you know later, am in office now.

[Thomas]

Hi Coolasmoo,

Can you please disable "GX" within the software suite. Also, please check to make sure that it does not automatically re-enable itself.

Please let me know how you get on.

[Thomas]

Also,

 Restore MB to default BIOS setting, which is pretty likely the optimized for such a heavy-loading game
 Tweak the power setting to make sure VGA gets as much power as it wants
 In our test with single 480, the power is set to “optimized”, and VGA is sometimes low on power. After we give it full power, no more crashes
 Put VGA on the PCI-E slot that’s closest to CPU (the top slot on MB)

[coolasmoo]

Hi Again,

Thanks for the update guys,

Yep I have read about the GX within the suite, but this was never enabled when running the game. I did various tests with all enhancements off and on.

Unless there is any other way to check this, all I could see was a red button in the top right of the control panel that had a toggle on and off.

Thomas, your second suggestion seems to troubleshoot VGA issues. I also ran optimized defaults while troubleshooting in the bios.

VGA is a 680GTX, top slot closest to the CPU and I run a 800w Dark power pro PSU.

The Phoebus runs off a dedicated 6PIn off the PSU.

Thanks Raja for the testing, look forward to hearing your results.

[Thomas]

Hi,

We have heard of a similar issue in the past when a customer was using a Xonar card on a Gigabyte motherboard. The above suggestions are what we discovered to be a quick fix for the issue.

As you have confirmed you have disabled GX and ran BIOS at Optimized Default Settings I will see if there is anything else we can do to help you.

Can I ask where you purchased the Phoebus? If you would not like to wait then please return it asap.