Having trouble with Sound BlasterX AE-5 with Maximus IX Hero

[bfollowell]

I've been having trouble with my Sound BlasterX AE-5 sound card. It works great when it actually initializes. The trouble is, at cold boot, from a completely shutdown condition, it takes a minimum of four restarts for the card to properly initialize and get sound in Windows. Once I get it, everything works great and, once its up, a restart usually doesn't affect it. It's just that initial boot from being turned off.

I've tried moving the card to different slots, but it makes no difference. I moved the card to my wife's computer that has a Gigabyte motherboard, and it works just fine in her system.

I've started working with Creative technical support. At first, they thought that maybe my system was booting too fast for the card to finish initializing. I disabled Fast Boot and put the Post Boot Delay to the maximum of 10 seconds, but it doesn't help. When I had it in my wife's system, hers boots to Windows 10 desktop in about 20 seconds, and it doesn't seem to have any trouble initializing.

Someone has mentioned that I may need to disable Secure Boot and turn on Legacy mode in the CSM. I thought the Legacy Boot options were for only for helping boot from various devices that don't properly work within a UEFI environment. Am I mistaken or misinformed?

I know disabling Secure Boot and going to Legacy Mode will require me to reinstall Windows and set my system up all over again. Before I go to the trouble of that, does this sound like it could help with my issue?

Thanks.

[Menthol]

I purchased the same sound card just because I hadn't used a dedicated sound card in several years, I have used it on a X Hero and currently on a X Apex, I have zero issues as far as initialization, I use it with Logitech Z-906 5.1 speaker system, I prefer speakers to headphones.
I don't believe changing boot settings are going to change anything (my boot settings are default), if you use a nvme boot drive Legacy install is not an option and shouldn't make any difference, as to why you have issues on the ASUS and not the Gigabyte I don't have an answer
Do you have the power cable connected? the card works without the power connector as it just supplies power for the RGB LED's
How long have you owned the card, can it be returned to seller for a replacement?
Is your bios settings all default, any overclock, specifically a blck overclock? are the pcie settings default, as you didn't manually change them from auto to Gen. 3.0, 2.0 etc.

[bfollowell]

No, I'm not into RGB lighting, so I didn't connect power. I purchased the card straight from Creative on December 19, when they were having their big Holiday special and I picked it up for $104! I've only had it for two months, and I think the warranty is 24 months, but the return for a replacement is only 30 days, so that isn't an option. I could return for repair, or return for refund, but then I'd lose out on my great deal if I purchased another because it would be at current price. Also, since it seems to work well in my wife's system, I'm not convinced there's anything really wrong with the card. I haven't attempted any overclocking yet so, other than disabling fast boot and upping the post boot delay time, all settings are pretty much default.

[bfollowell]

I was still the BIOS that my board came with, 0906, so I updated to the most recent, but that didn't help any. I did finally decide to turn fast boot back on and lower the post boot delay back to the default of 3 seconds. Much faster boot times, which is especially nice when you have to boot four times in a row!

Still no word back from Creative yet.

[Menthol]

The first time I installed my card it wasn't detected, turns out I had manually set all my pcie slots to gen 3.0, after I set that back to default of auto the card was detected. That was a one time thing though, was worked just fine since.

Hope you get it straightened out, or your wife enjoys the sound

[bfollowell]

I sent Creative my System.nfo files from with sound and without sound. The funny thing is, with sound, under Sound Components, it shows I have Sound BlasterX AE-5. Without sound, it shows I have a SB Recon3D. For some reason, when booting from cold start, the motherboard isn't identifying the card properly, so Windows in loading a driver for another card, which really isn't the card I have, hence no sound and the reason the Sound Blaster Connect 2 app doesn't detect my card. For some reason, restarting four times, eventually, it picks it up and identifies it correctly, then it works from then on.

When I get in tomorrow, I'm supposed to delete the card and the driver the next time it shows up as a SB Recon3D, then run the Windows Hide Update tool, so that Windows won't install that driver again. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Still, there's a problem there somewhere. If the motherboard isn't properly identifying the card at boot-up, I don't think blocking that one driver is going to fix anything. If it's not identifying it properly, and the driver it wants isn't there, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to jump to using the right driver.

I guess we'll see. If I don't see any improvement, maybe I'll follow your lead and try setting my PCI-E slot to Gen3.0

[Menthol]

Setting to gen 3.0 the card was not seen, I had to set to auto for card to work.
If Windows is installing a Realtek driver then it sounds like the onboard audio is not disabled as it should be when using an add on card

[bfollowell]

No, onboard sound is disabled. Windows is installing an older Sound Blaster Recon3D card driver.

I misunderstood on your comment on the PCI-E gen setting. I'll double-check mine, but I think they're in auto.

[bfollowell]

Well, I've ran the gamut of tech support with Creative concerning my sound card. We've tried every available slot on my motherboard, but the result is the same. We've disabled fast boot and played with the Post Boot Delay setting to no avail. We've moved the sound card to my wife's computer and it works just fine in hers. Creative has washed their hands of the card, understandable since it works perfectly in my wife's computer.

I switched to ASUS tech support. I was initially less than impressed with their support. I emailed and gave them all the information, detailing what we had already tried, and the outcomes, and letting them know that it appears to be a problem with the motherboard. In return I received a form letter stating that my my motherboard had a qualified vendors list of equipment that had been tested to work with my motherboard and a link pointing me to the list, and stating that they really couldn't help if I was using something that wasn't on the list. The only Creative card on the list was a ten-year-old Audigy card.

When I woke up this afternoon and saw the lame response, I decided to lookup a motherboard support number and call. I had a little more luck there. After discussing everything that we'd tried to troubleshoot the card, and being on hold for a half-hour while the tech discussed the issue with others, he said they don't feel it's a compatibility issue. They feel my motherboard has a hardware defect.

So, now I get to RMA my motherboard and be without my computer for several weeks while they troubleshoot and possibly repair it.

Anyway, in case anyone else has similar issues in the future, or has been following this thread, I thought I'd let you know where everything was at the moment. I'll update my results after the RMA process.

[Menthol]

May not be the outcome you had hoped for but it sounds like you are working your way to a resolution
Not surprised there are not many pcie cards on QVL, memory is the biggest compatibility issue and few purchase sound cards these days, to be honest the only reason I purchased one is there was nothing else to upgrade on my system, at my age I can't hardly tell any difference, I also didn't use the LED strip but I have the power cable connected for the onboard LED's