I should upgrade that now that I know what to do with the card. If I hit the volume on the PC (because the volume buttons on My Pioneer remote don't work anymore) It will decode Dolby Digital or DTS at full volume. I also need to figure out how to pass PCM only through the card when I am watching Blu Rays and DVDs. There should be a shortcut on the Desktop for it. Normal People would not know that the program is there. I had to check the stupid SPDIF box in the Asus Xonar Audio Center. The only way to regain control of the system is to power it off and restart it.I got the thing working. I'll just be sending the card back if it turns out to be a hardware issue, so my question today, is how to I rule out a software problem? I have WinDBG on the machine, but I don't know how helpful it will be, as the system doesn't come up with any error messages, it just freezes completely. So I've narrowed it down to either being a hardware or software issue with the card, but I cannot determine which it is. The problem does not occur when the card is installed, but unused, i.e: when I use my GPU as a sound card through HDMI-out, or when using my onboard audio. This can be something as simple as watching something on youtube, or playing a resource intensive game.

The card causes my system to become completely unresponsive (frozen) when driving any audio through the card. The drivers I'm running are the most recent Uni Xonar drivers. I have an Asus Xonar DSX sound card installed in my system that has been giving me grief lately, and Asus support and Google searches have been no help in figuring out what's wrong with it.

Asus xonar dg audio driver stuck