I am having trouble when trying to update the driver for my 'creative audigy 2 ZS' sound card. I downloaded the driver, then went to update it and it says please reboot your computer for the hardware to start working. It then has a '?' in device manager and basically doesn't work. When i try to update it again i get a prompt that says, "before applying this update you need to reboot your computer". It seems to me like the driver installed is corrupt. I can't do anything with it. I have tried a few things such as different versions of the driver and also a system restore, neither of these worked. Is there any tools i can use to fix this, i was thinking maybe something like a registry fixer? any feedback would be appreciated, Cheers.

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You say you're updating your sound drivers? Normally I would remove the old drivers before trying to install new ones. There are programs such as Driver Cleaner which will completely remove your old drivers. Let me know if this fixes your problem.

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Another option is removing the card from your computer.

Remove the drives from your computer.
Reboot the computer.
Look if everthing is removed (and the reboot shoud have synced the drivers).
Shutdown the computer.
Install the card back in the computer (if needed in another slot).
Start the computer again, normaly you should have a box new hardware detected.

Here you can do 2 things :
Install the drivers provided with your card (maybe the best if available).
Or install the drivers from Microsoft (use these only if the others don't work or are not available).

Note :
You can search on the site of your card manufacturer if there are newer drivers available.

Normally with sound blaster cards there are few problems or there may be a conflict with another card.
Or a sound card built-in on the mainboard.

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Can you explain me...... about the basic components of a Sound Card????

Please i have Problem from It because I'm not understand........

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usually you first format you're pc and install windows and install the drivers... once you installed a driver.. the second time you install a newer version of that driver for audio or graphics for example.. you might screw youre pc. and sistem restore never helped me that is why i dont use it.

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Most likely your Windows has screwed itself up... Happened to me once... With Creative actually, but with SB Live!... What I did is, remove the card physically, power my computer up, clear DMI pool in the BIOS, entered windows, checked to see there are no drivers left from SB Live!, then shut the computer down, re-insert the card, again, clear DMI pool, enter Windows, and just give it the location of the new drivers, and it worked...

What I found in experience, is that you can sometimes screw up your computer with new drivers... Usualy drivers provided on the CD with the hardware, are perfectly suited fro your hardware, and downloading is very risky... Few manufacturers provide drivers per model, most of them have universal drivers... And anything that is universal, generaly sucks

So, my advice to you is, just reinstall your old drivers, and if the above action doesn't do it for the new drivers... Well... Keep using the original ones

Keep us posted, tell us what did work, and what didn't...

 

 

 

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Thanks for the help guys, its fixed now, I don't know why, but i tried an older version of the driver and it seemed to work

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