worth a shot replacing the three (or was it four?) small caps near the regulators at the pci connector, as per that one youtube video on the topic. i once did this on a 2zs and put an esr meter to these caps, they were indeed bad. clearly a design flaw by creative putting caps in there not fit for the task and failing prematurely.

though if it causes the machine to not boot at all it could also be a bent pin shorting out or some other damage on the card.

A card preventing the system to post indicates there might be a short to ground. With a Multimeter set on continuity try probing both pins of each cap to the ground. If you find that both pins on a cap are beeping it means that cap is shorted , try replacing it. But for a 2ZS might not be worth it if you can find another for cheap.

Thanks for the tips! Want to give it a shot before just tossing the card. I will give it a shot...

Do you think it is possible connecting the front panel I/O device is what killed the card? I don't have the original cable, but I understood a regular IDE cable could be used if careful about pin 1 orientation...

I want to be sure I don't kill another if I attempt to connect the I/O front panel.

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 14:31:

Do you think it is possible connecting the front panel I/O device is what killed the card? I don't have the original cable, but I understood a regular IDE cable could be used if careful about pin 1 orientation...

I want to be sure I don't kill another if I attempt to connect the I/O front panel.

Many people say that it works and a lot of ebay sellers throw in a random IDE cable, but I've never seen one working, some close up pictures of the original cable would be nice to DIY some up.

I have a SB Live! 5.1 which does this to any board it's slotted into, I've not tried to repair it but it'd be interesting to see if it is actually capacitor related issue.

I have been searching for a pin out schematic...

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-06-01, 17:16:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 14:31:

Do you think it is possible connecting the front panel I/O device is what killed the card? I don't have the original cable, but I understood a regular IDE cable could be used if careful about pin 1 orientation...

I want to be sure I don't kill another if I attempt to connect the I/O front panel.

Many people say that it works and a lot of ebay sellers throw in a random IDE cable, but I've never seen one working, some close up pictures of the original cable would be nice to DIY some up.

I have a SB Live! 5.1 which does this to any board it's slotted into, I've not tried to repair it but it'd be interesting to see if it is actually capacitor related issue.

The IDE cable used has to be a 40-pin, not an 80-pin one . Also, I once partially killed an SB0460 card by plugging in the IDE cable offset by one row (20 pins connected instead of 40 and obviously wrongly connected). After I corrected my error, the card still would not detect the front panel, but otherwise worked . That card front panel combo had been working for years before that happened . I swapped-in a new card, connected everything properly from the get-go and everything worked (the front panel survived).

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

That's always worked for me .

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

The orientation of the connectors is what I'm interested in, sounds dumb but again I assume it's the same as with a regular 40 wire IDE cable.
(and confirmation that it actually works for people of course 😁)

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:28:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

The orientation of the connectors is what I'm interested in, sounds dumb but again I assume it's the same as with a regular 40 wire IDE cable.
(and confirmation that it actually works for people of course 😁)

Pin 1 on the card goes to pin 1 on the front panel connector, and so forth .
I'm pretty sure the pins are identified on both devices (I do not recall issues identifying cable orientation).

I've used on X-FI SB0460 cards and SB0250 front panels .
Audigy 2 and first generation X-FI panels and cards are interchangeable (same pinout) .
I actually used and Audigy 2 ZS panel on an X-Fi years ago .

The X-FI and Audigy 2 ZS front panels have the same SB0250 model on them (good job Creative Labs). The Audigy 2 ZS panel has a firewire connector and additional header that is meant to connect to the corresponding header on the Audigy 2 ZS card, if using with an X-FI that header can stay unconnected with no issues .

EDIT: Probably more then you wanted to know. 😀 Hope it answers your question .

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:28:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

The orientation of the connectors is what I'm interested in, sounds dumb but again I assume it's the same as with a regular 40 wire IDE cable.
(and confirmation that it actually works for people of course 😁)

There is a white triangle that designates pin 1...

darry wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:07:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

That's always worked for me .

yeah, looked pretty straight forward... I just want to be sure to not kill another card (if that was the cause). Don't know if there is any cases of the I/O bays killing cards...

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-06-01, 17:16:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 14:31:

Do you think it is possible connecting the front panel I/O device is what killed the card? I don't have the original cable, but I understood a regular IDE cable could be used if careful about pin 1 orientation...

I want to be sure I don't kill another if I attempt to connect the I/O front panel.

Many people say that it works and a lot of ebay sellers throw in a random IDE cable, but I've never seen one working, some close up pictures of the original cable would be nice to DIY some up.

I have a SB Live! 5.1 which does this to any board it's slotted into, I've not tried to repair it but it'd be interesting to see if it is actually capacitor related issue.

quick continuity test didn't find any that had both posts shorted to ground. There are some near the top that didn't have any tie to ground. I will have to remove them to test as I don't have an ESR meter...

darry wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:51:

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:28:

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-01, 19:03:

yeah, it is a 40 conductor cable. It is a straight (no twist) cable with just a connector on each end...

The orientation of the connectors is what I'm interested in, sounds dumb but again I assume it's the same as with a regular 40 wire IDE cable.
(and confirmation that it actually works for people of course 😁)

EDIT: Probably more then you wanted to know. 😀 Hope it answers your question .

It does, Thanks, It's one of those things that's not been important enough to put effort into trying but has bugged me never having had or seen one of the original cables. Any time I've bought one it's been someone throwing in a 80 pin IDE cable which I didn't want to try n possibly kill something having seen other people reported killing cards or the livedrives etc.

Hopefully SuperSirLink gets everything working.

So I got my hands on another Audigy 2 ZS card... Card works and I have sound, but haven't been brave enough to plug in the I/O bay device... I found the pinout https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/com … -ad-ext-40-pin/ and thought I would first check for pins shorted to ground that were not marked as ground...

I have no ground on pin 3 but all the other pins seem fine (anything else mark ground is shorted to ground, anything not is not). No other pin shorts to pin 1...

Powering the device without it connected to the sound card and I found there is no 5v at pin 1.

I don't want to kill the card (still can't say for sure that is why the first one died), but is there anything else I should check?

Hello SuperSirLink,
try the following steps with the faulty card:

1) power off the PSU or disconnect the power cable,
2) wait for a considerable time (30 minutes at least),
3) insert the card,
4) restore power, but DO NOT turn on the PC,
5) wait for a considerable time (30 minutes at least),
6) turn on the PC.

If you are lucky the PC will boot fine and the card will be detected.
If you are less lucky, the PC will boot but won't see the card. In this case, try repeating steps 1-6 but with increased waiting time at step 5 (up to 24 hours).
If you are not lucky, the PC won't boot. Again, you could try increasing the waiting time at step 5.

I have one Audigy 2 and several 2 ZS / 2ZS Platinum Pro that were initially working fine in all conditions, but with time started to prevent the PC from booting after it was powered off. The solution above works with all of them.

After first successful boot and card detection, the PC can be shut down or rebooted as usual, as long as the PSU is powered on.

Hope this helps.

That is very interesting behavior you are describing... Cant say I have witness that before... That sounds like a capacitor issue, allowing them to discharge then take a standby charge before trying to boot the system. The original card is dead however. I have had it in and out of several systems... I also suspect it was not the I/O bay that killed it, I got brave and powered the new card with the I/O bay device connected as shown. No issues, still boots and plays sound...

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-06-08, 20:13:

That is very interesting behavior you are describing... Cant say I have witness that before... That sounds like a capacitor issue, allowing them to discharge then take a standby charge before trying to boot the system. The original card is dead however. I have had it in and out of several systems... I also suspect it was not the I/O bay that killed it, I got brave and powered the new card with the I/O bay device connected as shown. No issues, still boots and plays sound...

That's good news . Those IO bays are great, IMHO, one of the best design ideas Creative Labs ever had .