I installed a soundblaster audigy 2zs also, and soon after started having lockups within a couple minutes of bootup. I didn't initially connect the problem with the new sound system, and eventually my efforts made it all worse. I ended up wiping my drive and reloading from scratch. So then I had the audigy 2zs card still installed, but I didn't get around to loading the software for it for several weeks. During those weeks I had no problems at all. Then I loaded the software, got sound for the first time in all that time, and then the crashes started again. I immediately did a system restore to an earlier save point (I have XP), and the problem went away. So I've definitely pinned the problem to the soundcard software. For now I have no sound but also no crashes.