Creative axes 2.700 jobs, nearly half of its workforce

[STaRGaZeR]

While the hype is bubbling over surrounding Creative's Zii "stemcell computing," the outfit obviously doesn't think whatever it is will turn things around. Instead, it has chosen to cut some 2,700 jobs -- nearly half of its workforce -- as "demand for its music players tumbled." According to a report filed to Singapore's stock exchange on December 31, 2008, the company had 3,100 full time employees at the end of June 2008, which is around 47% lower than what was posted a year prior. 'Course, we suppose the cuts aren't all that surprising after posting a net loss of $19.7 million on the lowest revenues in five years, but it still makes us wonder just how confident the company is about this whole Zii dealio.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/04/creative-axes-2-700-jobs-simultaneously-lowers-expectations-for/

[newls1]

Damn, We can kiss driver updates out the window.

[zanzabar]

Damn, We can kiss driver updates out the window.

we had driver updates from creative???

[BrowncoatGR]

I've had a couple of media players from Creative and all have benn high qulity and chep without any major bugs tbh. Certainly all have been very competitive feature wise but it seems Apple has this market more or less locked in even if they are among the worst feature/price wise.

[safan80]

maybe the company will finally grow a brain!..... :rofl: nah

[situman]

Next is bankruptcy.

[Katanai]

Next is bankruptcy.

No, next is my company throwing people out... :( It seems that everyone will be affected by this crisis...

[STEvil]

stemcell computing? what?

oh yeah, eat it creative.

[Starscream]

we had driver updates from creative???

just imagin how grt their support wil b now.

[Chad Boga]

stemcell computing? what?

oh yeah, eat it creative.
I hope you are this understanding when other people take joy in the dismal results of other semiconductor companies.

[junkmonk]

if they really had faith in this zii thing, they could have held on to their employees just a liiittle bit longer.. 4 days longer to be exact. :ROTF:

Recession proof? Zii may be but your company is not. :rofl:

[MpG]

Kind of sad. There are companies that would kill for the market position that they used to have. Insert the dinosaur analogy of your choice here.

[nn_step]

No, next is my company throwing people out... :( It seems that everyone will be affected by this crisis...

hopefully they should know better. since economic down turn is optimal time to gain market share which is extremely beneficial when the markets return or improve.

[Glow9]

Your telling me creative had 2700 employees and not one of them can make software that doesn't suck?

[Apokalipse]

I hope you are this understanding when other people take joy in the dismal results of other semiconductor companies.Wait, do you think AMD is somehow comparable to Creative?

[Chad Boga]

Wait, do you think AMD is somehow comparable to Creative?
I think semiconductor companies are semiconductors companies.

They are not your friend or imbued with any special qualities, thus I see no reason why one of them should be granted a special status which protects them from realistic criticism, but a free for all of criticism can occur for other companies.

[T_Flight]

I don't know what happened to Creative, but that company was first rate second to none. They literally owned the sound card market.

Later they started these dirty buisness practices with bum drivers that caused users to have to buy new cards just becasue *they* broke them, then recently a kid experienced in prgramming fixed their junk (something they were incapable of doing) and what do they do? They go and threaten this kid, and create the biggest Internet controversy and hate war I have ever seen. Not only did they earn everybody's hate with that stunt, their own investors told them on their forum they better wise up and that whoever did that better fix it and be darned quick about it. They drug their feet for awhile and came out with an insincere apology to the kid. What they should've done was hire him, but after the insults and threats they threw his way he probably would not have trusted them even if they offered it.

The quality of their stuff now is nothing like it was before. The software and drivers are horrible, when their stuff beofre was issue free. I mean you opened ther box, loaded the drivers, and it worked. ABout the time things started going downhil was when they had to break into the optical drive market. I got one of those drives and it never worked. I RMA'd it to what was then EggHead (NewEgg) and fgot another and same thing. The motor wouldn't spin on either one, so I went to the Internet to find out what was going on and I find that there are pages and pages of people having the same issue.

This company has gone from the top to the bottom of the cesspool faster than could be believed if it wasn;t actually happening. Now they are kicking all their workers out to the street becasue they could not keep their buisness ethical.

When they threatened that kid what everybody told them then on their forum came true. They said they were done with them and would never buy a Creative Product again, and it looks like they stuck to their guns on that one. That incident was on every Internet forum I was a member of then...even ones that had nothing at all to do with computers. It was everywhere.

[Serpentarius]

Later they started these dirty buisness practices with bum drivers that caused users to have to buy new cards just becasue *they* broke them, then recently a kid experienced in prgramming fixed their junk (something they were incapable of doing) and what do they do? They go and threaten this kid, and create the biggest Internet controversy and hate war I have ever seen. Not only did they earn everybody's hate with that stunt, their own investors told them on their forum they better wise up and that whoever did that better fix it and be darned quick about it. They drug their feet for awhile and came out with an insincere apology to the kid. What they should've done was hire him, but after the insults and threats they threw his way he probably would have trusted them even if they offered it.

sounds like Microsoft tactics when they used on the (late) Netscape browsers
i recall they even hire wise guys to harass them

the soundcard empire huh? and we can only listen ..

[Apokalipse]

I think semiconductor companies are semiconductors companies.Of course they are. But that doesn't somehow validate your point.

[Final8ty]

I think semiconductor companies are semiconductors companies.

They are not your friend or imbued with any special qualities, thus I see no reason why one of them should be granted a special status which protects them from realistic criticism, but a free for all of criticism can occur for other companies.

Each semiconductor company is judged on its own merits like everything other company.

[STEvil]

I hope you are this understanding when other people take joy in the dismal results of other semiconductor companies.

Understanding about what? Creative were jerks to their customers and made poor drivers, they even denied me an RMA of my DXR3.

Anything they get they deserve.

[jonspd]

Your telling me creative had 2700 employees and not one of them can make software that doesn't suck?


no they have over twice that many or should I say had :down:

[Chad Boga]

Understanding about what?
It is not hard for people to have real or imagined grievances against companies, but what license does that then give them on forums?


Creative were jerks to their customers and made poor drivers, they even denied me an RMA of my DXR3.

Anything they get they deserve.
So with the bogus info AMD have handed out to investors, some of whom no doubt lost heaps of money by investing after these lies, you would be cool with people adopting the same attitude towards AMD?

Somehow I don't think so.

[Final8ty]

It is not hard for people to have real or imagined grievances against companies, but what license does that then give them on forums?


So with the bogus info AMD have handed out to investors, some of whom no doubt lost heaps of money by investing after these lies, you would be cool with people adopting the same attitude towards AMD?

Somehow I don't think so.

Yes i would cool with the investing airing their grievances with AMD.
But investors & the end customers are 2 different things.

[Rammsteiner]

Understanding about what? Creative were jerks to their customers and made poor drivers, they even denied me an RMA of my DXR3.

Anything they get they deserve.
The only real stupid thing Creative has done IMO is that stupid driver thingy of a few months ago, forcing people to buy a new card if they had Vista. That was really a shame.

X-Fi was pretty nice however I think it kind of failed, just like PhysX. There's like barely (usefull) support for that X-RAM, which is a shame because IIRC the few games what did supported it shown a positive result.

However, just because they didnt accept your RMA you basicly say DIAF. Now, that argument is quite weak since that's nothing more than a personal emotion.

If you think you're in your right, then straighten your spine and get them to accept the RMA, in the end they'll have to bite in the dust... if you're in your right that is.

[adpr_02]

Any chance that Creative may be bought out by someone so that their busyness can be straightened out? I think the X-fi is very good, if only it had good drivers, I'd never upgrade (I guess they realized that their hardware is too good and decided to do something about it:down:).

[XS Janus]

I had no idea they had 5000+ employees!

I wonder what they all of those people did in that company...
:D

[EagleRock]

Sad news never had problems with my card.

[The0men]

Understanding about what? Creative were jerks to their customers and made poor drivers, they even denied me an RMA of my DXR3.

Anything they get they deserve.

Your targetting the wrong people... Perhaps the owners and managers
deserve this comments, but this artical is about 2700 average joes now
without the jobs paying their wages.
Whether you like the product or not, no one forced you to buy it, and
regardless, its more people out of work...

[RaZz!]

I don't know what happened to Creative, but that company was first rate second to none. They literally owned the sound card market.

Later they started these dirty buisness practices with bum drivers that caused users to have to buy new cards just becasue *they* broke them, then recently a kid experienced in prgramming fixed their junk (something they were incapable of doing) and what do they do? They go and threaten this kid, and create the biggest Internet controversy and hate war I have ever seen. Not only did they earn everybody's hate with that stunt, their own investors told them on their forum they better wise up and that whoever did that better fix it and be darned quick about it. They drug their feet for awhile and came out with an insincere apology to the kid. What they should've done was hire him, but after the insults and threats they threw his way he probably would not have trusted them even if they offered it.

The quality of their stuff now is nothing like it was before. The software and drivers are horrible, when their stuff beofre was issue free. I mean you opened ther box, loaded the drivers, and it worked. ABout the time things started going downhil was when they had to break into the optical drive market. I got one of those drives and it never worked. I RMA'd it to what was then EggHead (NewEgg) and fgot another and same thing. The motor wouldn't spin on either one, so I went to the Internet to find out what was going on and I find that there are pages and pages of people having the same issue.

This company has gone from the top to the bottom of the cesspool faster than could be believed if it wasn;t actually happening. Now they are kicking all their workers out to the street becasue they could not keep their buisness ethical.

When they threatened that kid what everybody told them then on their forum came true. They said they were done with them and would never buy a Creative Product again, and it looks like they stuck to their guns on that one. That incident was on every Internet forum I was a member of then...even ones that had nothing at all to do with computers. It was everywhere.

ye, idd.

creative drivers/software have always been a pain.

some time ago i've updated my complete creative package with the newest drivers/software (drivers + creative surround mixer + eax console). the soundcard itself is an audigy2 (the first revision, not the zs<whatever> version).
after that i can't adjust the overall volume without crippling the volume of every surround channel. everytime i adjust the volume the volume of the rear channel is pulled down and the sub is muted. only the front channel keeps working fine. and yes, the drivers are set to 5.1. i had this problem with my old system (see rig 2. in sig) as well as on my current system.

wrote a mail to the creative support that their last few updates were crippled and illustrated the problem.
they told me to read the FAQ section of their site as they do not longer support anything related to their audigy2 product line.

well lol, so they release official drivers/software for their audigy2 product line but tell me to shut the f off when these don't work.
i can understand that they can't support every card for ages, but i didn't even had the chance to make them account for the problem so they can fix it in their next release. oh well...

[D749]

Creative is one reason I went the route I did to avoid all sound card drivers: Beresford TC-7510 MK6/3 DAC + Pop Pulse PC Link II USB to SPDIF converter. :up: I mainly use my system for gaming so I didn't see the need to blow a grand on a really good DAC such as a DAC1 USB.

[Clunk]

I had no idea they had 5000+ employees!

I wonder what they all of those people did in that company...
:D

Returns. :up:

[Final8ty]

Your targetting the wrong people... Perhaps the owners and managers
deserve this comments, but this artical is about 2700 average joes now
without the jobs paying their wages.
Whether you like the product or not, no one forced you to buy it, and
regardless, its more people out of work...

Which you could still blame on the Creative owners and managers for messing things up that lead to the job loses.

[XSAlliN]

Your telling me creative had 2700 employees and not one of them can make software that doesn't suck?

Those are not the ones fired, I mean he's not the one fired, cause it's just 1 man.

[Donnie27]

I never had much problems with their drivers. I don't used 6 year old sound cards as well. Show me some one with Driver Problems and 85% of the time I'll show you some one using nVidia or VIA chipset motherboard. The cards have problems with MOST Xtremely overclocked, under powered, over loaded with USB devices and similar systems. 3 of the 4 rigs in my home have Creative cards running with ZERO problems.

Just got through playing with the titanium version of the card and wish I had one for the HTPC in the Den.

Creative brought a lot of this misery on themselves. Also, lack of understanding of the different models contributed as well. I tried Daniel K's (X-Fi on any card) drivers. It did nothing some folks swore it did. But his X-fi and the YouP_Pax driver packs worked very well. The the folks talking about Audigy 2 working like the X-Fi must have never heard real EAX 5 or even 3 or 4 as well.

Last but not least thank Microsoft and DRM's Protected Paths:down:

[Helmore]

I never had much problems with their drivers. I don't used 6 year old sound cards as well. Show me some one with Driver Problems and 85% of the time I'll show you some one using nVidia or VIA chipset motherboard. The cards have problems with MOST Xtremely overclocked, under powered, over loaded with USB devices and similar systems. 3 of the 4 rigs in my home have Creative cards running with ZERO problems.

Just got through playing with the titanium version of the card and wish I had one for the HTPC in the Den.

Creative brought a lot of this misery on themselves. Also, lack of understanding of the different models contributed as well. I tried Daniel K's (X-Fi on any card) drivers. It did nothing some folks swore it did. But his X-fi and the YouP_Pax driver packs worked very well. The the folks talking about Audigy 2 working like the X-Fi must have never heard real EAX 5 or even 3 or 4 as well.

Last but not least thank Microsoft and DRM's Protected Paths:down:

Doesn't the fact that Creative didn't extend certain licenses/contracts it has/had with Dolby also play part in this. Creative only had a contract to use a couple of those Dolby digital thingies on XP and not for use on Vista. That's why they got o mad at Daniel K as what he was doing was to breach that contract and that could cost them a lot of money. I could be wrong though, but I thought it had something to do with that.

[Rammsteiner]

Your targetting the wrong people... Perhaps the owners and managers
deserve this comments
I cant agree with you here though.

In the end it's indeed down to the directors to fire people or not, but if it's needed to keep your compagny alive what other choice do you have?

If there were good outstanding people in a compagny they would do anything not to lose them. On every section someone has to stay to keep certain parts of a compagny running, if you failed not to be the best or equal to the best, then you're in trouble. And the only one to blaim is your self, you cant expect a compagny just to respect eventual poor work and/or to keep you in the compagny when there's a huge financial problem.

I noticed it's quite easy to flame on managers/directors few last years but nothing then respect from my side. In the end, without those people said compagny wouldnt even survive one year. And indeed you've rotten apples among them, but just like average joe's, if they get fired you dont hear me;)


Show me some one with Driver Problems and 85% of the time I'll show you some one using nVidia or VIA chipset motherboard.:down:
Now that's rather a weird statement. How can it be in anyway a problem of nVidia/Via that Creative's products have problems, if at all? That's the problem of Creative, and so it is upto Creative to fix that and not to anyone else.

To be honest, I had quite some issues with Creative although in the end it was easy as hell to fix them, so I dont really call that a problem. It really depends what and when you call a problem. Most of the time trying different PCI-slots fixes a whole lot:p:

[Final8ty]

Doesn't the fact that Creative didn't extend certain licenses/contracts it has/had with Dolby also play part in this. Creative only had a contract to use a couple of those Dolby digital thingies on XP and not for use on Vista. That's why they got o mad at Daniel K as what he was doing was to breach that contract and that could cost them a lot of money. I could be wrong though, but I thought it had something to do with that.

Daniel K does not work for Creative so Creative can not be held liable.
And no more so than a gunsmith who had legally sold a gun to a person who is legally entitled to carry one who later goes on to murder someone.

[Donnie27]

Doesn't the fact that Creative didn't extend certain licenses/contracts it has/had with Dolby also play part in this. Creative only had a contract to use a couple of those Dolby digital thingies on XP and not for use on Vista. That's why they got o mad at Daniel K as what he was doing was to breach that contract and that could cost them a lot of money. I could be wrong though, but I thought it had something to do with that.

Again, DRM causes more problems in Vista than it helps.

They got mad at Daniel K because DRM blocked them from using DDL on their cards unlicensed at that time. Hell, I got a DDL hack about a month after X-Fi launched. Creative could NOT be seen as OK-ing what Daniel was doing. I even said on their own forums that they should contract/hire Daniel K. If folks want legal DDL and DTS just go here;

http://buy.soundblaster.com/


Experience high-quality surround sound from your PC through your home theater with Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. It encodes your PC's multi-channel audio into a Dolby Digital or DTS bitstream and outputs it from your sound card's digital out (S/PDIF), via a single digital cable into your home theater system. US$4.72

But why am I surprised by some folks who think $.99 downloads are too much. THAT'S NOT AIMED at you BTW!

Creative sent out surveys.
They withdrew pay for support Alchemy on none X-Fi cards.
They bought a license for DDL and DTS then only sold it for $4.72.

Please also understand that the hate for Creative is unfounded more times than not. AMD didn't RMA my dead TBird 1.33GHz, said I overclocked it when the Sum-Bee-yeotch barely ran stable at stock it ran so hot. Yet, I've bought 4 more processors from them after that POS.

I showed someone Fake EAX 5 support on Audigy 2 and Xonar, then reinstalled my card without any leftover drivers or etc......... My Harmon Kardons easily confirms what I'm saying here. Even on Computer speakers it is easy to hear the difference.

Sound Cards just aren't important enough and many folks just aren't buying them. Computer sales and all of their associated hardware will suffer during these bad economic times. Creative is far from the last of the tech to have problems, they're just the start, bad times are ahead. If these weren't bad times and this was happening I'd go along with some of the things being said here.

[Donnie27]

I cant agree with you here though.

In the end it's indeed down to the directors to fire people or not, but if it's needed to keep your compagny alive what other choice do you have?

If there were good outstanding people in a compagny they would do anything not to lose them. On every section someone has to stay to keep certain parts of a compagny running, if you failed not to be the best or equal to the best, then you're in trouble. And the only one to blaim is your self, you cant expect a compagny just to respect eventual poor work and/or to keep you in the compagny when there's a huge financial problem.

I noticed it's quite easy to flame on managers/directors few last years but nothing then respect from my side. In the end, without those people said compagny wouldnt even survive one year. And indeed you've rotten apples among them, but just like average joe's, if they get fired you dont hear me;)


Now that's rather a weird statement. How can it be in anyway a problem of nVidia/Via that Creative's products have problems, if at all? That's the problem of Creative, and so it is upto Creative to fix that and not to anyone else.

To be honest, I had quite some issues with Creative although in the end it was easy as hell to fix them, so I dont really call that a problem. It really depends what and when you call a problem. Most of the time trying different PCI-slots fixes a whole lot:p:


Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
Show me some one with Driver Problems and 85% of the time I'll show you some one using nVidia or VIA chipset motherboard.


Now that's rather a weird statement. How can it be in anyway a problem of nVidia/Via that Creative's products have problems, if at all? That's the problem of Creative, and so it is upto Creative to fix that and not to anyone else.

To be honest, I had quite some issues with Creative although in the end it was easy as hell to fix them, so I dont really call that a problem. It really depends what and when you call a problem. Most of the time trying different PCI-slots fixes a whole lot

If I explained to you 95% of the problems are caused by PCI Polling, PCI bus master retry (fixup), Industry standard Bus Mastering and etc.... Since you're biased to the FACT that nVidia doesn't make the best boards and some even called them POS's, I'm not surprised at all. That is the only thing weired LOL! Often ANY hardware Bus-mastering card has problems on VIA (most of the time has Bus mastering disabled. nVidia trades stability for speed.

Your post should have been posted to someone who's complaining about problems, I don't have any:up:

[LiquidReactor]

I don't know what happened to Creative, but that company was first rate second to none. They literally owned the sound card market.

Later they started these dirty buisness practices with bum drivers that caused users to have to buy new cards just becasue *they* broke them, then recently a kid experienced in prgramming fixed their junk (something they were incapable of doing) and what do they do? They go and threaten this kid, and create the biggest Internet controversy and hate war I have ever seen. Not only did they earn everybody's hate with that stunt, their own investors told them on their forum they better wise up and that whoever did that better fix it and be darned quick about it. They drug their feet for awhile and came out with an insincere apology to the kid. What they should've done was hire him, but after the insults and threats they threw his way he probably would not have trusted them even if they offered it.

The quality of their stuff now is nothing like it was before. The software and drivers are horrible, when their stuff beofre was issue free. I mean you opened ther box, loaded the drivers, and it worked. ABout the time things started going downhil was when they had to break into the optical drive market. I got one of those drives and it never worked. I RMA'd it to what was then EggHead (NewEgg) and fgot another and same thing. The motor wouldn't spin on either one, so I went to the Internet to find out what was going on and I find that there are pages and pages of people having the same issue.

This company has gone from the top to the bottom of the cesspool faster than could be believed if it wasn;t actually happening. Now they are kicking all their workers out to the street becasue they could not keep their buisness ethical.

When they threatened that kid what everybody told them then on their forum came true. They said they were done with them and would never buy a Creative Product again, and it looks like they stuck to their guns on that one. That incident was on every Internet forum I was a member of then...even ones that had nothing at all to do with computers. It was everywhere.

When was this?

[Tulatin]

/\
This is when a guy took the existing drivers, and modified them so that it was no longer X-Fi only = Vista. He also took a look at a number of the cards, and found that there's really not that much difference between them, so he was able to enable additional features on them.

the company deserves to die, but the employees don't deserve to get screwed for it.

But really, a look back on Creative:

Confusing Badging
Misleading Product Lines
Useless Features
HORRIBLE Drivers
Forced Obsolescence
Scaremongering tactics to people who would support them.

Yep, just burn the headquarters down now and call it a day.

[Final8ty]

The employees are always the collateral damage.

[Serra]

You know what really hurts when something like this happens? The fact that you want to say "Well, maybe they weeded out a lot of the bad eggs and can come out on top again."... but you can't. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that from the top down, big companies keep like-minded people and those who are willing to tow the company line to the end. As a result, in firing-sprees like this it's usually the people who constantly speak up about the inadequacies of their company (trying to improve them) that get cut.

So I guess we'll see. If they brought in an outside company to decide who goes they might be OK... otherwise... I see them going from bad to worse.

*sigh* What ever happened to the Creative that used to be the biggest and best name in computer audio?

[Rammsteiner]

If I explained to you 95% of the problems are caused by PCI Polling, PCI bus master retry (fixup), Industry standard Bus Mastering and etc.... Since you're biased to the FACT that nVidia doesn't make the best boards and some even called them POS's, I'm not surprised at all. That is the only thing weired LOL! Often ANY hardware Bus-mastering card has problems on VIA (most of the time has Bus mastering disabled. nVidia trades stability for speed.
Well, lets keep that word out of it for once, shall we? On a side note, I dont know where you get the idea that Im biased to the fact that nVidia doesnt make the best boards since if there had to be someone who got highly annoyed about the endless whinage about nVidia's 7x0i series, that would be me. nVidia had some :banana::banana::banana::banana: ups, mainly with the 680i (leaving Penryn support out of it since I think that's irrelevant), but at some point every fart was nVidia's fault. I'd like to buy an nVidia board just as much as an AMD board, but due to the lack of ACC, which ain't even needed anymore but that info came too late, I didnt get one.

I know Creative cards on the good old nF4 boards were often a hell, although in the end moving the card to a different slot helped out. So yeah, is that really a problem, it doesnt work as it should but it doesnt take Einstein to make it work either. Maybe a kind of comparable to your level of pain, some go all em0 on little things and others walk on a broken foot for a week before they really suffer:rolleyes:

Then however Im kind of wondering, any chipset maker designs something which does fit feature wise in the required standards (I'd guess?). So if a certain product mainly has issues with said chipset... I think Creative would be the one to fix it, be it with or without support from any chipset maker.


Your post should have been posted to someone who's complaining about problems, I don't have any:up:
I smell a trap and thus wont comment:p:

[situman]

So where can I download that special Daniel K driver for vista?>

[fragmasterMax]

bout time.

[generics_user]

they deserve it, i had alot of troubl with the x-fi titanium, first there is NO MIC boost on this card which renders my headset useless, additionally the quality of the FP hd_audio output is horrible as i get ALOT of unwanted noise on the front board (onboard is OK), their drivers refuse to install properly if you already installed onboard hd_audio drivers, every 4-5 hours the sound has some horrible distortions on all channels and only switching from entertainment mode to game and back stops those distortions


yes i still use the card, but only because it's there, if i'd buy a soundcard again i'd go with another brand :down:

[Donnie27]

Well, lets keep that word out of it for once, shall we? On a side note, I dont know where you get the idea that Im biased to the fact that nVidia doesnt make the best boards since if there had to be someone who got highly annoyed about the endless whinage about nVidia's 7x0i series, that would be me. nVidia had some :banana::banana::banana::banana: ups, mainly with the 680i (leaving Penryn support out of it since I think that's irrelevant), but at some point every fart was nVidia's fault. I'd like to buy an nVidia board just as much as an AMD board, but due to the lack of ACC, which ain't even needed anymore but that info came too late, I didnt get one.

I know Creative cards on the good old nF4 boards were often a hell, although in the end moving the card to a different slot helped out. So yeah, is that really a problem, it doesnt work as it should but it doesnt take Einstein to make it work either. Maybe a kind of comparable to your level of pain, some go all em0 on little things and others walk on a broken foot for a week before they really suffer:rolleyes:

Then however Im kind of wondering, any chipset maker designs something which does fit feature wise in the required standards (I'd guess?). So if a certain product mainly has issues with said chipset... I think Creative would be the one to fix it, be it with or without support from any chipset maker.


I smell a trap and thus wont comment:p:

No trap at all LOL! I don't have problems with Creative Drivers. I merely asked you to post to folks with problems:up:
I've repaired tons of systems having problems that ranged from minor to big.
I was a Big time Aureal 3D Fan and my old MX-300 was one of my favorite cards.
I've told others to remove Creative Cards from their systems when the card was at fault. Sweet running system but with PCI problems.

The old saying still proves true, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.


Confusing Badging
Misleading Product Lines
Useless Features
HORRIBLE Drivers
Forced Obsolescence
Scaremongering tactics to people who would support them.

Describes 97% of all companies selling hardware:D

[Aberration]

The old saying still proves true, the squeaky whell gets the oil.

I was taught another variation of that.

The squeaky wheel gets replaced.

[NapalmV5]

if creative would dissolve completely that would benefit humanity greatly

other companies/dsp would have a chance to flourish

aureal 8830 still sounds better than any creative garbage ever created

[Smalltimer]

I hope I don't sound like a crank when I say this, but perhaps there atrocious product reputation did them in.

There is no doubt Creative did some great things, but many of there sound cards were plagued beyond reprieve, and it just seemed like they just kept them coming.

The last two sound cards(so called premium ones) were severely problematic.
I finally tossed my x-fi aside this year in favor of an Asus one and I couldn't be happier. After which I found myself thinking... "I won't ever buy another creative card"

I'm not saying that's the problem but it makes it that much harder to feel bad about.

[Donnie27]

I hope I don't sound like a crank when I say this, but perhaps there atrocious product reputation did them in.

There is no doubt Creative did some great things, but many of there sound cards were plagued beyond reprieve, and it just seemed like they just kept them coming.

The last two sound cards(so called premium ones) were severely problematic.
I finally tossed my x-fi aside this year in favor of an Asus one and I couldn't be happier. After which I found myself thinking... "I won't ever buy another creative card"

I'm not saying that's the problem but it makes it that much harder to feel bad about.

See above? I had a POS A8N 32X and it had problems with more than just a sound card. This is the kind of info that misleads. I Ran the X-Fi and Audigy 2ZS in;
Intel i850/E, Zero problems, Gigabyte and Asus (E)
I865 and I875, Zero Problems 4 different Boards
i965
A8N 16X still has an Audigy 2ZS running with ZERO problems
A8N 32X problems out the Wa-Zoo!
P35, P38 Intel boards both Gigabyte.
P43 Gigabyte and P45 Asus/ P45 DFI, Zero problems.
Last but not least, it ran in an Intel i815E and Tualatin 1.2GHz without any problems.

So trying to base comments on one buggy @$$ed board is misleading as hell. Two 3rds of the systems above I owned and at least 4 of them I still own. No, most folks I know aren't having problem so it is not just my luck! nVidia's boards don't like Hardware PCI Cards=P That goes for NICs, SCSI and any others. That other sound card is software based and cases less problems on the PCI, sure it works:rolleyes:

@NapalmV5

No they don't unless you mod them:up: Again, I have two working ones I can't part with:up: If I could ever get Putfile to work, I'd show the pictures I took for another friend a few hours ago. I say again, way more than Creative will face tough times in 09. :(

[STEvil]

use photobucket, or even upload them here.

As to creative and PCI issues, it was because the default PCI latency value on a lot of boards was about 32 clocks. Bumping it to 64 or 128 cleared up the issue on "buggy" boards. Creative soundcards hogged the PCI bus, nothing new.

[Alcibiades]

um guys? hello?
maybe these guys KNOW something
maybe this has something to do with it
http://republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=columnists.article&articleID=467


In short, the debt created by futures speculation is approximately 16 times greater than the sum total of the entire wealth on the planet! And we think we are going to climb out of this?


reality check people
2009 will be... not good
fail to prepare, and you prepare to fail
peace

[tajoh111]

I think this has more to do with a change in market.

People just don't buy soundcards that much anymore. People don't care about sound very much, atleast to the extent where they want to buy a standalone card for it.

I look at most builds nowadays and I rarely see a soundcard. Unless you buy the most high end retail pc available, it doesn't come with a sound card.

Integrated is good enough for most people and pc are fast enough that people don't about the performance hit that they get for not having one.

Make no mistake people, creative, aside from integrated still has the greatest marketshare by far for soundcards. Not too many people are willing to spend 100+ for the auzen prelude.

Also the price of computer parts are low enough in general that people would rather get another few gigs of ram or a larger hd, or a faster videocard.

I think this has more to do with people not adopting anything but an apple as an MP3 player. The chance to make money is far greater in the mp3 player market, compared to the soundcard market. I think that why creative has tried to penetrate this market.

Creative mp3 players are some of the best out there. They get pretty steller reviews and they still don't sell very well compared to the apples. Apple hardly innovates in the mp3 market and they still sell well, it impossible to compete against that.

[T_Flight]

um guys? hello?
maybe these guys KNOW something
maybe this has something to do with it
http://republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=columnists.article&articleID=467



reality check people
2009 will be... not good
fail to prepare, and you prepare to fail
peace

:yepp: I already have. You are very wise...*very* wise. No taxes, and none of these schiesters are gonna get a single dime from me. It's out of sight, out of mind, and out of their reach to touch. :clap:

[oohms]

Good riddance i say :ROTF:

[Smalltimer]

See above? I had a POS A8N 32X and it had problems with more than just a sound card. This is the kind of info that misleads. I Ran the X-Fi and Audigy 2ZS in;
Intel i850/E, Zero problems, Gigabyte and Asus (E)
I865 and I875, Zero Problems 4 different Boards
i965
A8N 16X still has an Audigy 2ZS running with ZERO problems
A8N 32X problems out the Wa-Zoo!
P35, P38 Intel boards both Gigabyte.
P43 Gigabyte and P45 Asus/ P45 DFI, Zero problems.
Last but not least, it ran in an Intel i815E and Tualatin 1.2GHz without any problems.

So trying to base comments on one buggy @$$ed board is misleading as hell. Two 3rds of the systems above I owned and at least 4 of them I still own. No, most folks I know aren't having problem so it is not just my luck! nVidia's boards don't like Hardware PCI Cards=P That goes for NICs, SCSI and any others. That other sound card is software based and cases less problems on the PCI, sure it works:rolleyes:

@NapalmV5

No they don't unless you mod them:up: Again, I have two working ones I can't part with:up: If I could ever get Putfile to work, I'd show the pictures I took for another friend a few hours ago. I say again, way more than Creative will face tough times in 09. :(

I have no idea where you get your information from, but your widely mistaken in your assumptions.

To make matters worst, I started thinking last night and I recalled another Creative card to add to the fray. An old sound Blaster live 16(yaddee yaddaa) that I have upgraded as a result of an incompatibility issue from a previous Sound Blaster 16 card(budget one) as well aprox. 9 years ago.

I guess that would have been yet another motherboard issue again(intel I believe). I honestly can't say why people take it upon themselves to stand-up for companies and products like they mean anything...

Whatever the case, I will never buy another Creative sound card again.
It's one thing to blame another piece of hardware for there problems, but Creative used that same story over and over and over again until people like myself had just about enough of it. Have you ever seen the support forums? Keep in mind that beyond the 800 or so complaints per thread, that Creative swept most of the controversy under the rug(deleted). Forgive me if I sound skeptical.

Similarly, blaming another cards for being "lesser" in design is not very logical since the "lesser" cards work better than the supposed higher end ones. - Just makes no sense to try and stick such renationalisation into the argument. Whatever the case, my Xonar card was flawless in every way and it makes my old 300 dollar X-fi look like a piece of junk.

I really get the feeling Creative made there own bed and now there going to lay in it.

[Vinas]

I don't know what happened to Creative, but that company was first rate second to none. They literally owned the sound card market.

Later they started these dirty buisness practices with bum drivers that caused users to have to buy new cards just becasue *they* broke them, then recently a kid experienced in prgramming fixed their junk (something they were incapable of doing) and what do they do? They go and threaten this kid, and create the biggest Internet controversy and hate war I have ever seen. Not only did they earn everybody's hate with that stunt, their own investors told them on their forum they better wise up and that whoever did that better fix it and be darned quick about it. They drug their feet for awhile and came out with an insincere apology to the kid. What they should've done was hire him, but after the insults and threats they threw his way he probably would not have trusted them even if they offered it.

The quality of their stuff now is nothing like it was before. The software and drivers are horrible, when their stuff beofre was issue free. I mean you opened ther box, loaded the drivers, and it worked. ABout the time things started going downhil was when they had to break into the optical drive market. I got one of those drives and it never worked. I RMA'd it to what was then EggHead (NewEgg) and fgot another and same thing. The motor wouldn't spin on either one, so I went to the Internet to find out what was going on and I find that there are pages and pages of people having the same issue.

This company has gone from the top to the bottom of the cesspool faster than could be believed if it wasn;t actually happening. Now they are kicking all their workers out to the street becasue they could not keep their buisness ethical.

When they threatened that kid what everybody told them then on their forum came true. They said they were done with them and would never buy a Creative Product again, and it looks like they stuck to their guns on that one. That incident was on every Internet forum I was a member of then...even ones that had nothing at all to do with computers. It was everywhere.QFT

Creative isn't the company it once was. A shame really. Happy to report I've been Creative free since 2003. (hey that rhymes)

[Donnie27]

I have no idea where you get your information from, but your widely mistaken in your assumptions.

To make matters worst, I started thinking last night and I recalled another Creative card to add to the fray. An old sound Blaster live 16(yaddee yaddaa) that I have upgraded as a result of an incompatibility issue from a previous Sound Blaster 16 card(budget one) as well aprox. 9 years ago.

I guess that would have been yet another motherboard issue again(intel I believe). I honestly can't say why people take it upon themselves to stand-up for companies and products like they mean anything...

Whatever the case, I will never buy another Creative sound card again.
It's one thing to blame another piece of hardware for there problems, but Creative used that same story over and over and over again until people like myself had just about enough of it. Have you ever seen the support forums? Keep in mind that beyond the 800 or so complaints per thread, that Creative swept most of the controversy under the rug(deleted). Forgive me if I sound skeptical.

Similarly, blaming another cards for being "lesser" in design is not very logical since the "lesser" cards work better than the supposed higher end ones. - Just makes no sense to try and stick such renationalisation into the argument. Whatever the case, my Xonar card was flawless in every way and it makes my old 300 dollar X-fi look like a piece of junk.

I really get the feeling Creative made there own bed and now there going to lay in it.

Last things first, its the motherboard that's in your sig that's a flaming pile of crap:rofl: Simple visit to the Audio section will show that others have had problems with Xonars as well:up: My X-Fi EM was $99 LOL, not $300 and the other expensive Auzentech model was $164 shipped. The economy is hurting all companies and not just creative. Toyota is loosing money for the first time:rolleyes: You have the right to never buy Creative labs products and others should respect your doing so.

Again, I'm not assuming anything, I'm telling you what I have ran this card on without any problems at all. You're danged right I'm blaming that motherboard in your sig because I had one. I STILL HAVE the card running in the A8N 16X, flawlessly. Not because I read or was told about it, its running right now in my home. Now how the hell is that an assumption:D?

I'll stand up for any hardware that works but will trash to heck and back stuff that doesn't. That's what geek message boards use to be about. Even after other nVidia Chipset motherboards sent out BIOS flashes to adjust PCI Polling and etc.. to correct nVidia's none industry PCI standard, Asus was the last one to do so. Now PLEASE understand that I RESPECT your opinion, I disagree with the information part of you post. Now had you ran X-Fi on even a Gigabyte or a very Cheap Asrock P35 with Bus Mastering enabled, you'd understand why I so adamantly defend the X-Fi and heck, the Audigys as well. Not all is rosey though. The very first Audigy had REAL hardware problems and nothing to do with drivers.

It's not my opinion that software sound cards have fewer problems, back in the day, software modems and Nic's have fewer Bus Mastering related problems than their Hardware cousins.

Does Creative Suck? Yes they suck! If I held grudges against hardware companies I'd not have a computer, they've ALL ripped me off at one time or another. When the economy does better, so will Creative and everyone else for that matter.

[Chad Boga]

When the economy does better, so will Creative and everyone else for that matter.
Creative may suffer more than many other IT component makers, coz whilst computers themselves are somewhat discretionary spending items, standalone sound cards are discretionary discretionary spending items. :D

[Donnie27]

use photobucket, or even upload them here.

As to creative and PCI issues, it was because the default PCI latency value on a lot of boards was about 32 clocks. Bumping it to 64 or 128 cleared up the issue on "buggy" boards. Creative soundcards hogged the PCI bus, nothing new.

True and there's a thread on their Forums showing most folks got BIOS flashes to fix their problems. I don't know if Asus even shipped the needed flash. I needed 3 BIOS flashes to get my A8N 16X running. One for the ATI X1800 I was using, One for the X-Fi and one for running both of them together LOL!

Yes Creative cards hog the PCI BUS, so does most other Hardware PCI cards. The key though is that the Industry Stardard PCI BUS have few to no problems dealing with PCI BUS hogs of any kind.

I'll do photobucket tonight.

[Donnie27]

Creative may suffer more than many other IT component makers, coz whilst computers themselves are somewhat discretionary spending items, standalone sound cards are discretionary discretionary spending items. :D

QFT Chad!



Sound Cards just aren't important enough and many folks just aren't buying them. Computer sales and all of their associated hardware will suffer during these bad economic times. Creative is far from the last of the tech *companies* to have problems, they're just the start, bad times are ahead. If these weren't bad times and this was happening I'd go along with some of the things being said here.


Companies added to the edit.

Besides games, Creative has no other advantage at all. Many can make do without Creative and any other discrete sound card. I played with my built in sound that works perfectly in Vista 64bit for everything but Games and even has DDL. Gigabyte DS3L P43

Yes, I'm passionate about sound and can't even watch Blue Ray unless its connected to at least a good 5.1 Audio system:up: Until CMSS 3D, I thought gaming with Cans sucked!:down:

[Smalltimer]

You're danged right I'm blaming that motherboard in your sig because I had one.

I actually own two identical workstations at home with those(identical configs).
Neither of them have sound cards in them(no sense).

I payed 300+ for my x-fi with module 1.5 yrs ago, and I ran it on a DFI motherboard(go figure :rolleyes:)

You know what they say about those who "a-s-s-u-m-e' right :yepp:

[Donnie27]

I actually own two identical workstations at home with those(identical configs).
Neither of them have sound cards in them(no sense).

I payed 300+ for my x-fi with module 1.5 yrs ago, and I ran it on a DFI motherboard(go figure :rolleyes:)

You know what they say about those who "a-s-s-u-m-e' right :yepp:

Again, though look at the boards I've told you I tested? I'm not assuming anything LOL! Maybe you need to look the definition of assume:rofl: I know that board in your sig is a POS when it comes to PCI devices because I had one, there's no assumption at all. I went back to the 16X version and it worked. If you'd tried a better Intel platform or certain other nVidia chipsets you'd have some idea or a clue that Sound card drivers were the least of your problems.

That also has little to nothing to do with Creative or anyone else suffering during a world wide recession. Your assumption of Creative's woe's having nothing to do with the current crisis and is kind of lame:rofl: There are a lot of members here who dumped AMD because they didn't like nVidia's motherboards. Some went back when AMD shiped their own Chipset and WOW, it works with X-Fi as well:rofl::ROTF:



STEvil

As to creative and PCI issues, it was because the default PCI latency value on a lot of boards was about 32 clocks. Bumping it to 64 or 128 cleared up the issue on "buggy" boards. Creative soundcards hogged the PCI bus, nothing new.


One of many problems.
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t10946.html

[nike]

I own 3 Creative Products and all of them work flawlessy. NEVER had a single problem with them,
1 was a Audigy 2 Zs Plat. and it even solved my bluescreens on a very old rig(was new some years ago).
2nd is a x-Fi Titanium, works flawlessy and has an awesome quality over my old Audigy 2(thanks for the info bench :))
3rd one was a Zen x-Fi 16gb and that thing is awesome, it has awesome sound/videoquality and even knobs,
not like that applebullSH1T with the fkin touchscreen, man i hate these things.
Never had a single problem with creative, great products. (:

[Smalltimer]

If you'd tried a better Intel platform or certain other nVidia chipsets you'd have some idea or a clue that Sound card drivers were the least of your problems.

Well I guess two(different) nVidia chipsets aren't really enough, and of course it takes an intel chipset to run Creative cards properly...
Funny thing is the older SB16 card I mentioned earlier was on an intel chipset as well(ouchies). Another downside is that Creative never mentioned chipsets in their compatibility listings.

Here are a few mobo's/chipset I gleaned from the forum:


nForce 3 (Gigabyte k8ns 939 Ultra)
VIA K8T890 chipset.
Intel i865 chipset
ASUS P5WDG2-WS with 975X Intel Chipset
have a ASUS A7N8X nForce2
nForce680i
Gigabyte P35-DQ6
Asus P4P800 Deluxe

I got this from one page, I'm sure I could of built a hefty list but whats the sense, its quite obvious that Creative has some serious compatibility issues and that it was not limited to a few crappy motherboards.

Recession or not, I think Creative is right where they need to be atm.
Maybe this little jolt will remind them that they can't get away with such things without paying the price(great pun in there).

[Donnie27]

Well I guess two(different) nVidia chipsets aren't really enough, and of course it takes an intel chipset to run Creative cards properly...
Funny thing is the older SB16 card I mentioned earlier was on an intel chipset as well(ouchies). Another downside is that Creative never mentioned chipsets in their compatibility listings.

Now this I agree with and almost posted as a complaint:up: They're slow to take user advice on other fixes and etc.....


Here are a few mobo's/chipset I gleaned from the forum:

I got this from one page, I'm sure I could of built a hefty list but whats the sense, its quite obvious that Creative has some serious compatibility issues and that it was not limited to a few crappy motherboards.

If you keep reading you'd find that many of those got their problems fixed with BIOS flashes, BIOS tweaks, others removed USB devices, got better power supplies, others removed the card because it kept them from overclocking. Those just of some the legit problems. I'd almost bet that later BIOS' fixed problems on your board as well.

I never said it was perfect and it takes some work on the user's part on some systems. Old problems and most were corrected.


Recession or not, I think Creative is right where they need to be atm.
Maybe this little jolt will remind them that they can't get away with such things without paying the price(great pun in there).

Funny since sales went up following Auzentech and the Ti-Titanium's launches.

Last but not least, look at all of the folks with those Old SBLive and Audigys still using them and complainning? Most other hardware has died since these were sold:up:

[Donnie27]

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/DSCN0147.jpg

[Nelly]

I buy creative soundcards even though I can't stand them but they are great for gaming machines, the problem is Creative monopolised the soundcard market through things such as this:

On March 5th, 1998, Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement. Aureal countersued because they believed Creative was guilty of patent infringement.

After numerous lawsuits Aureal won a favorable ruling in December 1999, which vindicated Aureal from these patent infringement claims, but the legal costs were too high and Aureal filed for bankruptcy.

On September 21st, 2000, Creative acquired Aureal's assets from its bankruptcy trustee for US$ 32 million.

The purchase included patents, trademarks, other property, as well as a release to Creative from any infringement by Creative of Aureal's intellectual property including A3D.

The purchase effectively eliminated Creative's only competition in the gaming audio market. It also eliminated any requirements for Creative to pay past or future royalties as well as damages for products which incorporated Aureal's technology.Good riddance if Creative does fold!! would be awesome if thier patents where made freehold so various companys could do things without being filed for lawsuits.

[Donnie27]

I buy creative soundcards even though I can't stand them but they are great for gaming machines, the problem is Creative monopolised the soundcard market through things such as this:
Good riddance if Creative does fold!! would be awesome if thier patents where made freehold so various companys could do things without being filed for lawsuits.

Yes, I even said overall Creative Sucks and I too buy their products. But they're NOWHERE near to my heart like some of the old Cards hell, even my Hercules was sweet:up:

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/BlackBoxNewmids.jpg

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/DSCN0142.jpg

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/DSCN0152.jpg

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/OldandNewtogether.jpg

I've enjoyed my all Creative cards except the first Audigy. But I'd loved to have seen Aureal survive.

[Donnie27]

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=441844


More Foxconn layoffs in China and Taiwan

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) chairman Terry Gou has said that the economic crisis is three times worse than expected and that Foxconn will have to issue more layoffs in order to reduce the company's operating costs.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/a-dark-day-for-nvidia---layoffs-employees/

http://invest-n-trade.blogspot.com/2008/12/intel-layoffs-job-cut-may-layoff.html


Posted by Investment n Trading Advisor
on Sunday, 7 December 2008

Sheesh, talking about being Perl Horbored:rolleyes:

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/12/05/intel-fbr-sees-big-layoffs-amd-warning-spurs-est-cuts/

The markets sucks and world IT personel and products/services will be hit very hard. This could be a very long list.

[Salsoolo]

hmm, im shopping for a new card.
so who currently makes top sound cards?

im serious :)

[Serpentarius]

http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr245/Donnie27_photos/BlackBoxNewmids.jpg

what is the definition of LOUD? huh??? what, i couldnt hear you ..... :ROTF:


actually Turtlebeach (http://www.turtlebeach.com/products.aspx)soundcards are pretty good ... it's not widely known though .. but to only a few audiophiles

in fact i'm quite surprised there's hardly anyone know turtlebeach in this forum :rolleyes:

[STEvil]

Terratac is my fav, but only their top end external unit..

Yamaha had some nice external units but I cant find them anymore.

[Hor$eman]

Their crippling of drivers and the subsequent Daniel K fiasco sealed their fate with me. I still have an X-Fi something or other, but it is a dust collector.

[Revv23]

Me suspects this has more to do with the economy and with the fact that onboard sound has become quite good than it does with creative sucking. (even though they do)

Actually I've loved my X-fi platinum.. despite bloated drivers... that front panel is worth every penny IMO.

[Donnie27]

what is the definition of LOUD? huh??? what, i couldnt hear you ..... :ROTF:


actually Turtlebeach (http://www.turtlebeach.com/products.aspx)soundcards are pretty good ... it's not widely known though .. but to only a few audiophiles

in fact i'm quite surprised there's hardly anyone know turtlebeach in this forum :rolleyes:

I kept my Santa Cruz a long time. I knew a lot of TB owners and it wasn't a secrete at all:up: I don't have these monsters for loudness but for GOOD fullness without having to turn up it loud. I have a friend building me a better 4-way cross-over.

I like the Prelude but I'm ready to try some different Op-Amps.



STEvil Terratac is my fav, but only their top end external unit..

Yamaha had some nice external units but I cant find them anymore.

I tried a lot of sweet sounding cards, I ended up with Creative mostly for Games. I had an old EMU external somewhere:( can't locate it. For just Music listening and Creation, I still like the EMU 12-12, more than enough for me:up:


Their crippling of drivers and the subsequent Daniel K fiasco sealed their fate with me. I still have an X-Fi something or other, but it is a dust collector.

Depends on what feature/s? Intel has met all of ts goals for its Core Architecture and is still having to lay off. Again, hate or hatin' on creative has NOTHING to do with lay-offs that are and will affect many tech companies. No, I tried at least 9 different hack version of X-Fi for all on my Audigy 2 ZS. All I can say is don't believe the Hype:rolleyes:

Creative did to Daniel K? Umm lets see, I should hold crudes for 2 dead IBM Deathstars (Deskstars) against IBM, two Crap out Bigfoots on Seagate, Enermaxx power supply, overclocked RAM from Gskill and Corsair, Burnt TBird that dies when it couldn't handle STOCK temps, 3 change out of a recalled HP workstations, Panasonic Monitor, Logitech and Creative Labs speakers, MS Mouse, Intel i820, Intel Celeron with no cache, Model Numbers, LG or Opterite CD-ROM and RW, bad motherboards from 6 large manufactures, ATI and nVidia cards (at least two from each company died a few months after warranty. This about a Quarter of stuff that seemed to die without good reason on me son 1993.

Unlike so crazy guy complaining about a fracking 7 year old sound card, some of this Items died right the end of the warranty or soon there after. In the case of AMD, the TBird was under warranty and they said I overclocked it. How can you overclock something that ran too hot at stock speed:rolleyes:? If I did like you but treated all the rest like you do Creative, I'd not have a computer, no a MAC LOL!