The ROM should be cold and not even warm, so it seems the problem is found. It likely has a dead IO driver and that makes one signal stuck and that ends up corrupting everything on the sample bus and explains why things don't work out.
I have a spare chip somewhere, if I can find it, it can be sent your way since it will just continue to collect dust 🤣. (I moved recently to Norway and much of my stuff is still packed).

oh - I thought we established that most of those chips can be hot! 😀
I did check the lines with my scope, I haven't finished but I did observe some weird stuff on some lines as if there was some bus conflict (signals at 2.5V and so on)

And that ROM is not a regular one that can be sourced and programmed by myself? In any case, if you end up with a spare that would be cool. I'd pay for postage of course.

One more question (Columbo mode ON)! 😀

When playing games like DOOM, the soundtrack is working fine. Doesn't that require that ROM/sample memory?

Thanks again and I hope you find the spare chip! 😀

Tony

On that particular creative card, only the speaker amp chip can be hot, and only with 4 ohm speakers and significant volume for a while 🤣. Original not-integrated EMU8000 chips get very hot, but the integrated stuff on this particular card won't. DRAMs are barely warm in normal use and the ROM should be cold pretty much.

Those 2.5V lines are absolutely not normal, that should never happen on the sample memory bus there.

DOS games through AWEUTIL or ones with native AWE32 support use the ROM bank, but if those sound right then things are strange... but if some games are good and some not, the plot thickens 🤣.

I am unsure when the chip will get uncovered, I don't have a workspace yet and not even space to unpack many things. I am not yet sure how much will shipping cost over here...
AM29F800 could be a possible replacement, though it has several flash specific pins that require special care that the ROM will not have.

DOS games through AWEUTIL or ones with native AWE32 support use the ROM bank, but if those sound right then things are strange... but if some games are good and some not, the plot thickens

Yes, that's why I was puzzled. DOOM works, MIDI works. It's the "synth" in Windows and the AWE Synth from Diagnose which sound distorted.

I'll try some more games to test.

No pressure about the replacement chip - if and when you can find it, please do let me know!