BSOD?!?!?!?!?! creative labs? drivers? i'm melting

[cbusen]

I'll prob post this thread in a couple places because of all the things it is and what its capable of...anything for help right? anyhow, here is my problem. I finally got Fallout: New Vegas, works fine but not for long, as soon as i go to start a game, hit new, it starts to load it and goes to BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!! yes, haven't had that damn thing in forever. apparently this has been a problem. a file going by the name of ksaudfl.sys, has been one of the instigators in this and there is Paging in a Non-Paged Area, and we all agree that we just can't have that.

here is what i have hardware/software: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo, 3.0Ghz, Windows XP 64-bit, 8GB RAM, Diamond Multimedia 1GB DDR2 card HD 4650, Soundblaster Pro X-fi 5.1 external(usb) surround sound. To date nothing has really challenged my hardware such that its bogging down and i'm irritated. it is all very well cooled. i have removed and re-installed every driver package i could get my hand on the for sound card. It wasn't very many, like 3 differnt versions since it came out. So far the only success i've had in actually getting to play the game was disabling the x-fi, and telling it i was using headphones. my motherboard, a asus p5q-e has a Realtek HD sound something in it also i just remembered....anyhow what the hell is going on? my sound card has never been at problem, and i've had it for two years and bought ever cutting age game that came out in that time...i love it. is what i heard of creative labs true? software support sucks balls, don't buy again...yadda yadda yadda...i'll do it if i get the reccos here....thanks for anything and every idea you can throw at me? do any of the other 64bit drivers work for this version of xp? how different could those drivers be?

[stbuchok]

If you have a built in sound card, why do you have a separate one? If you have a fairly new rig, which it sounds like you do, the built in sound should be more than enough for you as long as you aren't doing any massive editing or running a concert off of it. Try taking out the Creative and just using the built-in one. The other thing you can try is to update the motherboard drivers (chipset drivers).

[cbusen]

This man...is genius...damn it. my friggin loyalty to that damn thing totally blinded me. I'll give it credit, the x-fi runs the surround sound awesome and software for fine tuning the music is really kick ass, but i only play with that like once a month for 15 minutes, then its back to games and uhhh...films that are exploratory into the human uhhh...subconsious? either way, THANKS A LOT! great idea but i do have a couple quick questions because i'm hoping you have some experience and recomendations for me here...i have a nice subwoffer, 5.1, amp, etc setup i actually won at work for performance, and i do like to play around with all the settings from time to time, in the future i'll build my own computer again but this time, if you were in my shoes would you a) get a pci? any advantages? b) when you go up from the $60 bucks i spent on this sound card, how much better can it really get?
one of the reasons it never occurred to me to use the build in sound card was that i always assumed it was like built in AC Delco stereos that used to come with GM autos.
any big advantages to using the built in one other than it can't fall out, it was probably cheap and it'll always be there?
funny thing is that both of them have always been 'enabled' and working at the same time and no problems til now.

any chance you could explain to me in simple terms what's happening that makes it crash when i let it try to generate a new game?
LAST QUESTION(but 2 parts): what do you think of creative labs? i read a lot of bad press in search of a solution to this, is that they're reputation? i always thought they made good stuff. what brand would you recommend?
thanks again man, i hope it works. have a good week and thanks for using an almost occum-like, zen-like approach to solving my dilemma.

[stbuchok]

Part 1:
a) I would use the onboard audio
b) I honestly don't know what more it gives you in way of "better" sound or functions, over the past 10 years, I've just noticed that onboard audio will always support 5.1 or greater and is almost always the Realtek chipset, it's always served me well.

Part 2:
a) I have no idea what would be causing the issues.
b) 10+ years ago Creative was the only choice if you wanted good dependable sound, since then they've gone down hill unless you get the ridiculously priced stuff that is really for audio editing.

I hope this helps, Creative was a great name at one point, but audio is actually a fairly simple thing compared to the rest of the computer and you can get amazing sound quality out of the onboard stuff (Realtek is a great brand in itself as well)