leon
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This can be because now they use leadfree solder and it melts at higher temperature then usual solder.I had some problems with this new solder too.
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Auzentech X-fi Forte is a good card, but not what I need. Unfortunately now there is no Audio card that I would buy.
They are either too expensive or too limited.
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I would take the new SB X-Fi Titanium for PCI-Express.It has the CA20K2 chip, wich is improoved version of CA20K1.But this card does not have an AUX IN connector on the card, so i cannot connect a DVD drive to it.
I don't know why Creative dropped this connector.Where should I connect my DVD drive or drives?
Some info about CA20K1 processor
Firstly the CA20K1 is an audio processing unit.It's a dedicated unit that is capable of processing about the same amount of instructions per second as early Pentium 4s (a little over 10000 MIPS), and is clocked at 500MHz.
Other audio cards from different brands, and on board audio chipsets, make use of a different kind of processor, known as a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) - it's only real role is to direct the other components involved with the chipset as to how and when they carry out their change to the audio signal, while a lot of the actual processing work itself is still unloaded to a certain degree to the CPU. Although, a PCI audio card can handle most audio processing by itself, it still needs the CPU for help. The X-Fi on the other hand, is capable of processing all audio files by itself with no interaction with the CPU, as well as orchestrating how and when the other PCB components can do their thing. This is where the X-Fi can support up to 128 simultaneous hardware voices, and a whopping 65535 software voices (in "game" mode"). Although some C-Media and other brand chipsets can equal 128 hardware voices, they are nowhere near capable of even coming close to touching the number of software voices the X-Fi can produce.
The Difference in Depth!
Ill take the CMI8788 chipset(Thanks to triggerc) and the CA20K1 APU for an example!
Although the CMI8788 is a really good audio chip, it's still a DSP - although highly specialized. On many older audio cards, you had a "chipset" which was a combination of a few various DSPs, DACs/ ADCs and other components - which made up a 'set' of 'chips' that processed audio signals in a specific manner.
The CMI8788, though, is a single DSP - it can carry out processing much more efficiently and faster than many DSPs can, but because it still relies heavily on the CPU and the SYS BUS, it still gets labeled as a chipset.
The CA20K1, on the other hand, is a highly specialize processing unit, that is comprised of a handful of individual components all intergrated within one singular unit - making up the whole . . . and the CA201K has no need for CPU processing, the unit handles all audio stream processing onboard - although it still needs to make use of the SYS BUS for access to DRAM (can't get around that, every expansion card does).
for a better understanding of the X-Fi architecture, and how it operates, I'll post a quote taken from techreport.com It's a lot easier to understand than what info Creative has released in the past; and TBH, the review does a better job than me........
The X-Fi architecture
Before exploring where the XtremeMusic fits into the Sound Blaster Xtreme Fidelity family, let's take a moment to explore the 51-million transistor X-Fi audio chip that's at the heart of Creative's new Sound Blasters. Manufactured using 0.13-micron process technology, the chip has roughly half the number of transistors of an Athlon 64 and more than 11 times that of the Audigy, so it's quite a leap from previous generations.
The X-Fi's processing power is divided between five internal units: the sample rate converter, digital signal processor, and mixer, filter, and tank engines. Much of the X-Fi's muscle ripples through a sample rate converter (SRC) that Creative claims pushes over 7000 MIPS. The SRC is actually made up of 256 individual sample rate converters, all of which tackle sampling rate conversions in the same manner. First, the sampling rate of an incoming audio stream is doubled. Next, a poly phase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter is used to produce a sampling rate four times greater than the desired output sampling rate. Finally, the sampling rate is reduced by a factor of four for output. According to Creative, this process is nearly transparent, and any loss in quality during sample rate conversions is miniscule compared to the noise generated by even the best DACs available on the market. If you're not convinced, the SRC can be bypassed when it's not needed.
Although the X-Fi's sample rate converter has significantly more processing power than the rest of the chip, it's still only one of five main chip components. The next X-Fi component of interest is the Quartet DSP. Quartet, in this case, refers to the fact that the X-Fi's digital signal processor is made up of four SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) hardware threads. Each of those hardware threads has two data paths, leading Creative to describe it as TIMD, or Thread Interleaved Multiple Data. Giving each DSP thread dual data paths is a clever way to deal with audio data, which generally arrives in multiples of two. With four "stereo" hardware threads, the DSP can tackle eight data streams at once—perfect for an eight-channel sound card. As one might expect, the Quartet DSP's instruction set is audio-centric. It can handle both fixed and floating-point data types, and Creative claims that the interface is programmer friendly.
The Xi-Fi's SRC and Quartet DSP are undoubtedly the stars of the show, but the chip has several other essential components worth mentioning. More than 1200 MIPS of processing power are dedicated to the X-Fi's mixer, which handles the scaling, combining, and, of course, mixing of audio streams. The "Tank" engine handles all of the X-Fi's delay-based effects, including reverb, chorus, reflections, and inter-aural time delays, while a filtering engine dedicates a couple hundred MIPS to environment modeling, equalizers, and positional 3D audio. The X-Fi also has a transport engine that interfaces with onboard memory and an I/O bus, such as PCI. As you might expect, the chip also has an audio I/O component.
and if one still needs further proof of the CA20K1 being more of a processor . . . on an X-Fi PCB, there is typically a small flash memory module located nearby the APU. This module is used to store the APU BIOS that your SYS BIOS needs in order to be able to properly communicate with it - much similar with how modern GPUs have onboard BIOSes as well. Some X-Fi models, though, don't have the flash memory module, and instead use a standard DRAM module in it's place. On these models, if you were to run the serial number on the DRAM, they typically come back as a 2MB. module......
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I use Windows XP, but I do not care about driver problems.I want to know if this card is good and wich audio chip it has.
Because there is a datasheet here
and it shows this or similar card with a CA0107-PAG chip and not CA20K1.I never heard about this chip before.
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There are so many variations of X-Fi cards arround and i don't know wich of them i should buy.
So for instance this one: Soundcard
It looks like a good deal, but i'm not shure.Which sound chip is it using.CA20K1 or some other?
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This can be because of bad solder point.
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This is not so easy even if you are putting it in the same computer.I tried to make an image.It worked well, but the cloned harddrive was bigger then original and i was not able to use the lost space.So it was a issue with MBR or something like this.And also partition magic could not fix it.But then I found a software called partition logic and it was able to fix this problem.
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High-level formatting
High-level formatting is the process of setting up an empty file system on the disk, and installing a boot sector. This alone takes little time, and is sometimes referred to as a "quick format".
In addition, the entire disk may optionally be scanned for defects, which takes considerably longer, up to several hours on larger hard disks.
You see that Full Format scans the disk for defective sectors.So if you do not full format it you never know if you have some defect sectors.
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Sure, you should do the update if it's recomended from Seagate.
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I don't think so, you mean quick format.I'm talking you about full format.It is similar to a floppy disks.Some disks become unreadable with time, but if you full format them, they are good again.Exactly this can happen also to a HDD because it works similar.
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I mean some sectors may be not bad, but just not good magnetized and then if you format them they will be O.K.
But there is also some software wich can restore bad sectors.It does not hide them, it really try to restore them.
It's name is "HDD Regenerator"
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If you perform a full format then the write head magnetize all the data bits on the platters.So if they where not properly magnetized it can restore them.
This means that it's good idea to perform a full format especially on a new or old drive.
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- no its not partitioned
- well have music on it which in my books is really important and some pics
This is impossible, if you have some data on it, it must be partitioned and formated.
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If your adapter works, then you do not connect it in the right way or your HDD is damaged.
There are 4 pins on the HDD connector.You need only three of them.May be you connect it to wrong pins.
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Try again!
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This is not a symptom of bad firmware, as I said already this problem is due a virus in the CMOS on the mainboard.
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Some people say, that this is not good to change the boards, but I don't know, why exactly.
Maybe it's because the firmware is recorded not only in the chips on the electronics board, but some part also on the platter in the so called Firmware Area.
Firmware Area (or System Area) is a reserved space dedicated to hard drive's own needs, such as: storing SMART logs, defect reallocation tables, program code (overlays) and so on. Flash EEPROM chip contains only a little part of the Firmware; its primary role is to spin up the spindle and unpark heads so that the drive can read the rest of the firmware from surface.
Firmware Area is inaccessible with generic ATA commands; it cannot be read or written with any software since the fact that the protocol is vendor-unique, and hard drive vendors do not disclose any information about their hard drive Firmware area structure or even about how to access it.
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Actually, it's not that difficult at all.The preparation can take some time, but if you have collected anything and connected it it's already half of the job.Then you simply type the commands and it's over in few minutes
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O.K I found now this: Affected fimware is this AD14, SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, SD81
And drives are this: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS, ST3640330AS, ST3640530AS, ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS, ST31000340AS. Also some Maxtor drives with this fimware.
And this are also affected: ST31500341AS, ST31000333AS, ST3640323AS, ST3640623AS, ST3320613AS, ST3320813AS, ST3160813AS
So there are many drives affected , but there is nothing about FreeAgent.
But you can see this yourself on the Seagate site.
I can only hope their new fimware will work better or nobody will trust anymore Seagate and people will not buy Seagate drives anymore.If it happens they go bunkrupt.But may be Chinese will buy this company, they were interested some time ago.
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Seagate say only drives with MX15 firmware are affected.
" firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming inaccessible after a power-off/on operation. The affected products are Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22.
In the event your drive is affected and you cannot access your data after a power cycle, the data still resides on the drive and there is no data loss associated with this issue. If your drive is no longer accessible, click here to contact Seagate directly for further assistance. If the inaccessible drive is in a RAID array, there may be limitations to the recovery and reinstatement of your drive, please consult with your Seagate agent for details. "
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But how can they know what you did with your drive?If you do this method of recovery and then update the firmware, will it be still covered by Seagate garantee or not?
But even if not it's not a big loss.I paid for my 50 Euros, so I can live with this.
But for some people the data on the drive is of more value then the drive itself.And because Seagate do not give garantee on the data, the best for them would be doing this fix.
There is simply no better alternative. I had doubt about tis fix too, but it worked.Many people have done it and it worked too.
So we can say that this fix is secure and it works.
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evandroticx I wonder that your drive is still working.However I do not recomend to proceed like this.
you can lose your data or damage the drive.
That i completely Agree,Seagate avaoided themselves from going backrupt :-)..I hope even now they will make firmware open source,as they lack good programmers
May be you are right, but I think it was rather a glitch.Somebody was not accurate enough and made a error.Can happen.Now he must be very sad about this, but it's too late.
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I think someone from Seagate leaked this to the benefit of mankind
I think also that they try to limit the damage this way, but not to mankind.If they must replace all affected drives and recover all the data they go bankrupt.
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I would like to know, who has invented this fix? I cannot believe that somebody can think out such a complicated procedure.There is to much what you need to know.So it must be a very smart person.
This adapter works, but there is a small error.The capacitor from pin 2 to +5V must be reversed.And it's good to insert a 100uF cap before the voltage regulator.
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X-fi soundcard
in Hardware Hangout
Posted
To say tht truth, I don't know.Maybe Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series.