April 14, 2002 (Original 12/22/01)
In September 2001 I upgraded my computer, buying all new parts. For my full system description, see below. I had problems with my Voyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card. Because it was past the 30 days return period, I could not get a refund from MicroCenter (a retail store). Voyetra refused to give me my money back for this piece of $H!#, err crap. Because I was forced to take a $50 loss, I wanted to share my experience with you:
I received all kinds of BSOD's, GPF's, and errors because Turtle Beach will not update their Windows 9x drivers. I believe for newer hardware, they are out of date. While viewing DVD's ported to my TV, if I click around too much in the Santa Cruz Control Panel, it would GPF on me. This also occurred while simply listening to MP3's. When the Santa Cruz drivers GPF, they bring the whole system down and I must reboot. Sometimes just clicking on the Equalizer tab would give me a BSOD.
I reinstalled using their downloaded web drivers. I still got the GPF's and BSOD's. After reinstalling their drivers 3 times, I emailed their tech support. They told me Santa Cruz cannot share IRQ's. I moved it to another slot so it did not share an IRQ and reinstalled a 4th time but it still crashed.
I bought their Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card expecting to buy the best on the market or at least equal to the Sound Blaster Live product line. When I called Turtle Beach, their tech support told me they are no longer updating their Windows 9x drivers. Before purchasing their product, I read many reviews and visited their web site. Nowhere on their web site does it mention they are are not updating their drivers. If a user upgrades his hardware such as a motherboard, video card, etc..., and he keeps a Windows 9x O/S (98, 98SE), their Win9x drivers will be out of date. Their last Win9x drivers are dated Jan 15, 2001. If you upgrade your hardware but keep a Windows 9x O/S, buy a sound card manufactured by another company. I do not recommend Santa Cruz in Windows 2K/XP either because it will probably share an IRQ. I am very disappointed with Santa Cruz.
April 14, 2002 Update: In February 2002, I sold SC used. I replaced SC with a Hercules Game Theater XP and I have not had any problems. Based on the same Crystal CS4630 chip, I am no longer getting any GPF's or BSOD's. I have been using the GTXP for 2 months with no problems. I have not gotten a single GPF and I have been using my system at least 8 hours daily. I have played 20 DVD's using PowerDVD 3.0.1005, used the Yahoo Messenger 4.1 voice chat program, and played 500 MP3's.
I did not have to do any special installation procedures. In Multimedia Properties, all Hardware Acceleration and Sample Rate settings are at maximum. I am writing this in WordPerfect 7. I have 7 IE 5.5 (SP1) windows open. I am playing MP3's in WinAmp v2.78C and I have the GTXP control panel open. I am running United Devices Agent (cancer cure search program) so my CPU is at 100% usage. I have Windows Explorer open. I have Norton Anti-Virus 2001 AutoProtect loaded and enabled. Finally, I have Norton System Doctor 2000 running. My system uptime is 10 hours. My GDI and User resources are 50% and 42%. My system has been stable down to 3%.
In My Opinion (IMO), the problem with Turtle Beach is that they simply do not want to spend the money to update their Win9x drivers. Despite the fact that there are millions of Win9x users in the world, they IMO refuse to update their drivers. If you are upgrading your hardware, XP drivers aren't available yet, and you wish to keep Win9x, you are taking a big chance buying a Santa Cruz.
Furthermore, there are 3 Microsoft Knowledge base articles which mention Santa Cruz. Because Turtle Beach never updated their Win9x drivers, they will IMO never be 100% Direct Sound Acceleration compatible. SC 9x drivers really are IMO garbage. Had I seen Q303110 mentioning MechWarrior 4, I would never have bought it and saved myself a lot of hassle. Here are all of the MS KB articles:
I thought about contacting Turtle Beach about my results with the GTXP. Because they made it clear to me they do not intend to update their Win9x drivers, I do not see any point in this. It's a shame I cannot use the SC. When it works, the sound is quite good. Unfortunately, when it GPF's while I am seeing a DVD ported to my TV, I lose the entire picture and I must reboot. Frankly, I find TB's lack of Win9x support outrageous. Because they claim Win9x support on their SC web page, I believe I have been cheated by TB. In February I sold my SC used for $38. It cost me a total of $88.
Daniel
A.K.A.: Cypherdude
This is my system. I used both APM and ACPI in Windows 98(1) but it didn't make any difference. I am using ACPI now: ********************************************************************** Windows 98(1); AMD Athlon TBird 1400/266 MHz; Thermalright SK6 all copper heatsink w/Arctic Silver II; CPU FAN: Sunon GM1206PTVX-AF 5200 RPM, 26 CFM, 38 dBA, 2.8 W; Abit KG7-RAID (RAID not enabled); 2 - Crucial 256 MB DDR ECC Memory; Asus V7700 Deluxe GeForce 2 GTS 64 MB w/Video (TV) In/Out; Panasonic S17 17" Monitor; Promise Ultra66 IDE PCI Controller card attached to: 2 - 30 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM; Lite-On 12x10x32 w/Burn Proof CD-RW; Toshiba DVD-ROM 16x; Mitsumi 12x CD-ROM (from 2 previous 1997-2001 systems); Mitsubishi LS-120 IDE 120 MB Floppy; Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card (Replaced with Hercules GTXP); US Robotics 56K Performance Pro PCI Modem; Enermax 430 Watt Whisper PSU; Case: Mid-Tower, ChenMing, Model ATX-601AE w/Front & Side Door, 2 intake & 2 exhaust fans (Same as ChiefTec Dragon DX-01WD case) (Same as Antec SX1030/SX1040 case w/o Antec PSU); (Same as Maxpoint/Enermax FS-710 case); Epson Stylus Color 980 USB Printer; Epson Perfection 1250 USB Scanner; Belkin F5U116 USB Hub with 4 USB, 1 Printer, & 2 Serial Ports; PK Electronics 500VA Blackout Buster UPS (attached to monitor); PK Electronics 1000VA Blackout Buster UPS (attached to PC case); ********************************************************************** This is the text of the BSOD I get while running WinAMP v2.76 and I click on the Equalizer tab in their Santa Cruz Control Panel. It is not 100% reproducible: ********************************************************************** A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C001EC2C. The current application will be terminated. *Press any key to terminate the current application. *Press Ctrl+Alt+Del again to restart your computer. ********************************************************************** This is the text of the BSOD I get while running WinAmp v2.78 and I click on the Equalizer tab in their Santa Cruz Control Panel. It is not 100% reproducible: ********************************************************************** A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C001F44A. The current application will be terminated. *Press any key to terminate the current application. *Press Ctrl+Alt+Del again to restart your computer. ********************************************************************** This seems to be a 16 bit error screen. It looks like the old error screen which popped up in Windows 3.1. It has black text with a white background and the same options. When I click Close, the Santa Cruz Control Panel turns into a large white box which stays on the DeskTop. Eventually my AutoHide TaskBar comes down and I must reboot. ********************************************************************** SantaCruzCPL An error has occurred in your program. To keep working anyway click Ignore and save your work in a new file. To quit this program, click Close. You will lose information you entered since your last save. [CLOSE] [IGNORE] ********************************************************************** These are the GPF's I get while running WinAMP v2.76-8 or AsusDVD 2000. ********************************************************************** Date 12/06/2001 Time 15:46 SANTACRUZCPL caused a general protection fault in module MMSYSTEM.DLL at 0001:000002d3. Registers: EAX=c29b0006 CS=1b67 EIP=000002d3 EFLGS=00000246 EBX=006b0018 SS=28df ESP=00000fbe EBP=00000fe4 ECX=006b0001 DS=37e7 ESI=00003988 FS=0f97 EDX=00018590 ES=0000 EDI=00000001 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 26 66 ff 06 18 00 66 26 ff 36 20 00 9a 63 03 67 Stack dump: ********************************************************************** Date 11/16/2001 Time 20:31 SANTACRUZCPL caused a general protection fault in module MMSYSTEM.DLL at 0001:000002d9. Registers: EAX=c29b0006 CS=1bdf EIP=000002d9 EFLGS=00000246 EBX=006b0018 SS=3987 ESP=00000fbe EBP=00000fe4 ECX=006b0001 DS=2d3f ESI=00003988 FS=1377 EDX=00018590 ES=0000 EDI=00000000 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 66 26 ff 36 20 00 9a 63 03 df 1b 83 c4 04 eb 1f Stack dump: **********************************************************************
