AE-7 + ARC Raiders kills system audio (Windows 11) + FPS drops – anyone else?

I’m looking for people who are experiencing the same issue or have already solved it.

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster AE-7

Game: ARC Raiders

OS: Windows 11 (fully updated)

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The Issue

While playing ARC Raiders, my entire system audio randomly dies:

•	No game sound

•	No Windows sound

•	No microphone input

•	Devices still visible in Device Manager

•	Windows Audio services remain running

The issue is not reproducible on demand but happens roughly once per day during gameplay.

Important:

When the failure happens, the system does not feel fully stable. FPS drop noticeably and the image starts to stutter.

The only way to restore audio on the AE-7 is a full system reboot.

Restarting Windows Audio services does not fix it.

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Critical Detail

When the failure occurs:

If I plug in my wireless USB headset → audio works immediately through the USB dongle.

So:

•	Windows audio stack is still functional

•	USB audio works

•	AE-7 remains dead until reboot

Event Viewer shows:

•	Creative.SBCommand.exe delaying shutdown

•	audiodg.exe preventing device removal

•	HDAUDIO\\VEN\_1102 (Creative) entries

Services (audiosrv, AudioEndpointBuilder) remain in RUNNING state.

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What I Already Tried

•	Clean uninstall of Creative software

•	Removing AE-7 drivers via Device Manager

•	Reinstalling latest official Creative drivers

•	Forcing 24-bit / 48 kHz sample rate

•	Testing with and without Discord running

•	Testing alternative USB headset (works when AE-7 fails)

The problem persists.

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System Specs

•	Motherboard: ASRock Phantom Gaming Nova WiFi X870E

•	CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

•	RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 DDR5-5600 CL28 64GB

•	GPU: ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090

•	Windows 11 fully updated

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What This Looks Like

Possibilities I’m considering:

•	Creative driver deadlock triggered by Unreal Engine 5 audio reinitialization

•	PCIe / interrupt issue under AM5

•	Interaction between GPU load spikes and PCIe audio device

•	ARC Raiders specific audio handling bug

The fact that FPS drop and frame pacing becomes unstable when the audio dies makes me suspect a deeper driver-level stall rather than just an audio service crash.

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Questions

•	Anyone else with AE-7 experiencing this in ARC Raiders?

•	Is this Unreal Engine 5 device reset related?

•	Has anyone solved this permanently?

•	Is this reproducible on other Creative PCIe cards?

Any confirmed fixes or similar reports would be useful.