Windows 10: Lost sound after latest Windows 10 update (Sound Blaster Z)

Was having same issue with my Sound Blaster Z getting muddled sound in browsers. Seemed to work okay in games though. Rolled back to the 6/24/2016 driver, restarted (full shut down and startup), had to go into the Creative Console speaker settings and switch it from 5.1 to Stereo (that's all I have hooked up) and it worked.

 

I registered here only to thank you.

THANK YOU!

Rolling back my creative audio driver (for a Soundblaster Z card) brought back my center- and bass speakers.
Working driver version: 6.0.103.34 (from 7.Feb.2017)

 

I've a Sound Blaster Zx card & after rolling back the Audio Controller and restarting the box, shows me the latest driver once again, without center and sub woofer output (F&D 5.1). Frustrated, I enabled the built in audio from BIOS and restarted the device & all of a sudden center and sub woofer started working for Zx. Although the Audio Controller shows "Rollback" grayed out, version remains the latest. Well, am too happy that it is working.

 

Its a problem with thw Windows update driver make sure you dl the one from vendor i keep the latest sbz driver from creative handy 2 times now i lost sound but installing over the current windows 10 fubar driver solves it

 

Hello! In advance i apologize for my bad English, i want to share my solution to the problem with the Sound Blaster Z sound card in Windows 10. Often when i turned on the computer, i did not have a sound and only helped reboot. It turns out that in Windows 10 enabled the fast boot mode by default because of which there were problems with the load of the sound card driver. After disabling the quick boot mode, the problem disappeared. Yes, the driver is better to use the previous one, from the end of 2016.

 

Same issue after letting Fall Creator's update install last night. Very frustrating but based on comments here I rolled back to the previous Win10 driver set and I have control and volume again. Crossing my fingers for a Creative driver update soon.

 

Yeah! Windows 10 Home edition is really the worst shit. I´m running this piece of crap and every time my OS decides to make an automatic update I have to reinstall my SBZ sound card. I talked with Microsoft and I talked with Creative Labs and non of them gives a crap. I hate them both. They can both burn in hell for what I´m going through. I´ve even made a shortcut to the SBZ installer on my desktop, to speed things up a little. As said before f*** microsoft and f*** Creative labs. Let them burn in hell a**holes.

 

Hi All

This is the first post I have made and hope it helps because I have had this problems for over 2 years. My Sound Blaster Z would produce no sound after Windows 10 creators and anniversary updates. I Deferred updates for 2 years but when 1709 was pushed it circumvented my deferment so I decided to give it a try before the customary Rollback of the OS to 16**.

So my problem consisted of Sound Blaster Z either producing no sound with no sound signal visible in volume mixer which was often accompanied by slow video streaming or none at all. I would then reinstall drivers and would get the green bars in volume mixer but still no sound and very slow video streaming, again with no sound.

Now when 1709 completed I had sound for the first time AFTER a shutdown and cold boot. This was without any Sound blaster software installed. The problem reoccurred when I installed the Sound Blaster Z drivers again and all the above problems reoccurred. So... now to the fix.

First turn off windows fast boot which you can read how to do HERE. Now go into your Bios and deactivate onboard sound so that the only option for you will be the sound card. Find out how to do this by reading your Mother Board Manual or Google your boards name for videos or guides on how to do it. Onboard audio can cause conflicts with sound cards. In my case it would cause windows start up sounds to cut out or be choppy. I only discovered this AFTER disabling onboard sound in my bios. *Confused Save and exit after making the change to your bios and allow system to reboot.



I then uninstalled all drivers and removed all creative folders and registry keys I could find. You can do this before the bios changes, it doesn't really matter but this step MUST be done before trying to install sound blaster Z drivers.
1) C:\Program Files (x86)\Creative
2)Have "Show Hidden folders" on to find this file easily ** C:\ProgramData\Creative
3)C:\Users\YOUR COMPUTER NAME\AppData\Local\Creative
4)C:\Users\Public\Creative

Open RUN and type "regedit" and delete the Creative Tech keys.

1) Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Creative Tech
2) Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Creative Tech

Then restart. I also use CCleaner but you don't need to.

Now let windows install its own driver for the Sound card. You should have sound but no control over sound blaster Z setting such as EQ as the control panel is NOT installed by windows 10 automatically. Once this process is finished install the Drivers from HERE. Some people at the time of this post were saying that SBZ_CD_L13_1_01_08 was more stable but I am using SBZ_CD_L13_1_01_10. Follow the installation instructions and go to custom and install the Controller driver and Sound drivers ONLY. They are the top 2 options. Clicking the other options produces a drop down menu and an option to not install that specific item which is shown as a red X.

Restart system as instructed at the end of the installation process. Sound should now function properly. IF you have a problem (I have had none following the above steps) go to Device Manager - Sound, video and game controllers - Sound Blaster Audio Controller and ROLLBACK. The rollback option will only be there if you let windows install the drivers as instructed earlier. Doing this allows the control panel to be installed but gives the option to roll back the driver if you have a recurrence of the problem.

Sorry for the long explanation but I hope it helps someone. As I said before it took me 2 years to find a fix.

Windows 10 Windows 10 creator update creators no audio no sound not working can't hear sound blaster z creative June July 2017 Creative Sound Blaster Z 1704 1709 Creators update Fall Update.

 

>Is the cable plugged into the right jack? (Seriously)





Every port looks the same on the lower rear portion of a tower, especially on this card and way the engravings are positioned it is not extensively pronounced and it will still continue to deliver audio.

I registered just to reply to this it was one of the top results for my search query

 

That appears to be for audio input and output. Which port depends on your audio equipment. The top 2 are for optical inputs and the smaller ones are typically color coded as are the cables that plug into them.

 

Excellent walk-through! I basically followed these steps, albeit using a slightly different method, and yet I still couldn't get sound out of my headphones. The one step I changed in my process, which seemed to make a difference, was ONLY installing the control panel and drivers as @kunyiosh stated in his steps. Now I finally have sound from my headphones. Just to clarify, my sound was working just fine prior to the Preview Build 17063 update. Thanks for the tips!

 

Thanks for the Tip! I installed the file with release date - Release date : 24 Jun 16