Blue Screen of Death in Vista while trying to replace a sound card

I just bought a Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme and installed it into my dual boot system. I had an Audigy 2 ZS running fine in both XP and Vista. I downloaded the latest drivers for XP pro and for Vista. Under XP pro, all went well. As soon as I booted into Vista, I got a little icon in the lower right stating that it was installing new drivers for new hardware. I don't know how to stop the process, so I just let it continue. After about 45 seconds, I got a BSOD, and the computer rebooted. I chose the option of starting the computer normally, and the same sequence happened again ending in the same blue screen, and an automatic reboot. I couldn't quite read what the screen said, so I redirected the reboot and am now in XP. Should I try and install in safe mode? When the icon in the tray popped up to tell me about the driver installation, there was no option to cancel, even though the "how to" blurb on Creative's website stated that is what I should do-cancel Window's automatic installation and then execute the downloaded file. Is there a way to arrest the blue screen so that I can copy down what it says?

 

If Creative uses the Windows Installer, installing in Safe mode will not be possible.

Try this, Boot Vista Normally when you get the "installing new drivers for new hardware" prompt rt click it in the system tray and see if there is an exit there. If not, is it showing as a process in the status bar at bottom. If so rt click and chose close.

If none of above do Ctrl-Alt-Del get Taskmgr and if listed under Applications end the process.

Even if listed and ended in Applications under Application then click the process tab and look for any processes that seem to be related to Creative and end those processes.

If you can kill this process then go with the Creative CD install.

Mike

 

If you cannot start in Normal Mode, but can get to F8:

I have attached the Advanced Startup Options.

System Restore:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927525/en-us

Startup Repair:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

Matt

 

Success!

Well, right clicking on the "looking for drivers" on the taskbar didn't stop the process, nor did looking at the task manager-no applications showed up at all, and no processes showed up that looked to be anything related to creative labs. However, when I booted into safe mode, it too started looking to install the new hardware, only this time it said it completed successfully. It even identified the sound card correctly. But, when I rebooted, I got the BSOD. So I went back into safe mode, planning to uninstall the sound card. In the hardware manager, under the X-Fi Xtreme card, it had the option of updating drivers, so I executed the downloaded package from creative labs, and it completed successfully. So, I'm off and running. Thanks again for your time and willingness to help.
As an aside, I don't think the whole enterprise of going from an Audigy 2ZS to the X-Fi Xtreme was worth the effort. I have a pretty revealing setup with a respectable Sony ES series receiver-old, but still fine, and a pair of KEF Q75 speakers. If anything, the game of HALO2-the only reason I got involved with VISTA to begin with-runs slower or more jittery. I thought the X-Fi Extreme would unload some of the strain on the CPU.
Oh well.

 

Glad you are "good to go! "

Mike

 

The CPU does not seem to be one of the most important requirements (2GHz):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/93682
Use the test program for checking your system:
http://gameadvisor.futuremark.com/

The capability of the graphics adapter and amount of system RAM seem to be the most important factors.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Investigate DirectX. If you have a DirectX 9.0 graphics card and you are running DirectX 10.0, you may need to install DirectX 9.0. Apparently, both can be installed at the same time on Vista.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Try searching or ask at the forum (check the pinned topics first).
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=6

Have you checked for updated drivers? Get updates for your motherboard/chipset drivers first, then those for the graphics adapter (I check at the adapter manufacturer's website).

Matt

 

Thanks Mike and Mattman. I'm pretty good about keeping video drivers up to date, but frankly never gave the motherboard chipset a second thought.
The computer I'm using, bought second hand, has an ASUS A8Ne mb, which was pretty old to begin with, is probably off ASUS's radar by now.
The chipset is an Nvidia nForce4, and I'm not sure if it is safe to just go to NVIDIA's website and see what they have or if I should stick strictly with ASUS and their updates. How can I tell what version of chipset driver I have?

 

These are the specifications:
http://www.asus.com.tw/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=171&l4=0&model=455&modelmenu=2

Asus don't have Vista drivers. You want the nForce 4 Ultra AMD drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winvista32_15.01.html
(Version 15.01)

Matt

 

Thanks for the links, Mattman. Do you know where to go to find out which version drivers I currently have?

 

Not that I know of or can find easily.

If you have not updated them since you installed Windows they will be the original Windows installation.

I updated all of my drivers from the original Vista installation. I am using the 15.00 version of those drivers.

I recommend you do the same for the graphics drivers if you have not updated those. Again, I suggest going to the manufacturer of the hardware first.

You can get some information about your hardware by typing system into the Start Search bar and opening System Information.

Matt
PS
There is one Vista driver listed at Asus:
ACPI driver for ATK 0110 virtual device for Windows 2000/XP(32bit and 64bit)/2003(32bit & 64bit)/VISTA(32bit & 64bit)
http://support.asus.com/download/download_item.aspx?model=A8N-E&type=Latest&SLanguage=en-us