X-Fi problems

[NeoHC421]

So I decided to build a budget, small gaming rig.

Everything was working fine, and then one time when I booted up my computer, windows freezes and won't finish loading.

I tried everything I could, and then I took out the soundcard (creative X-Fi). No problems.

I think its odd that at one point, everything worked without a hitch, so I uninstall the sound card drivers and put the soundcard back in. It doesn't detect the soundcard. I reboot, and now it detects and I can install it.

Once again, it works for a bit, then I turn it on the next day, and windows stops loading.

I get a hunch that some driver might be conflicting with my graphics card, so I take out the 7900GS and use the integrated video (geforce 6100). No problems.

I put the video card back in, and now it works.

So, the next time windows stops booting, I reboot into safe mode, uninstall the graphics drivers and reboot into windows normally to reinstall the drivers. Reboot and it works.

However, while playing warcraft 3, the game was glitching out so that instead of scrolling a little, it would keep scrolling to the edge of the screen. So I restarted the computer, and now I can't reinstall the drivers with the sound card in or else it will freeze and hang on a black screen.

I've racked my brain and can't find any other solutions. So I decided to come to the infinitely wise Anandtech forums to see if any of you can't figure this out (or help me figure it out).
Originally I thought my PS was too weak (even with the energy efficient athlon) so now I have a 500W PS. Mobo is the Gigabyte GA-M51GM-S2G, 2GB of OCZ 667 DDR2 RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, eVGA Geforce 7900GS and the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card.

Any questions, thoughts, suggestions, comments?

Thanks

 

[btcomm1]

Well, I don't know how long ago this started happening or what you might have installed, but you could try a system restore back to a date a few days back when you know it was working properly. How long was your rig working before it started having this problem?

 

[NeoHC421]

That's the thing... when everything was working (including sound card), it would stay that way less than a few days.

I even tried reformatting and reinstalling windows...

The entire system isn't that old. I bought everything on black friday

I'm beginning to think there is just an overall incompatibility issue, or that this mobo is just a POC

Any thoughts??

 

[btcomm1]

You could try another PCI slot with the sound card, sometimes that inexplicitly fixes things. Also I know that you took the sound card out and it booted up but did have you tried gaming extensively without the sound card in to see if it still freezes up?