[Soundblaster Z] PC won't boot with Sound Card

Hi,
today i got my new Soundblaster Z but my monitors stay black if i try to boot with it installed.
MSI Z97S SLI PLUS
Intel i7 4970k
Geforce GTX 980
Win 7 64
All drivers up to date.
Since my PCIe(x1) 1 is blocked by the CPU Fan and PCIe(x1) 3 is blocked by the fan of the graphics card i only have 4 and 5 left - both are PCIe x16. I tried them several times but the results where always the same - the PC has power but the Monitors stay black. The LED of the soundblaster is red glowing by the way - i don't know if thats normal or a warning signal.
Is the sound card faulty or am I missing something?
Thanks,
Korahan

Hi Korahan,
1) You may want to rearrange your cards to free up a slot, other than 4 and 5, that can fit in the card. If your CPU fan is a separate unit, you might want to remove that temporarily to see if it works. What we want to do here is to identify whether any of the slots are working fine. The PCIe x16 slot is within the specs of the Sound Blaster Z.
2) Next suspect is perhaps your PC's power supply, whether there is enough power for all your installed peripherals.
3) You can try the card on another system just to ensure that the card is not faulty
4) Regarding the LED, this is normal; there are some who found this rather annoying. You can easily search online on how to disable or hide the 2 LEDs. Just note that any physical modifications made to the card will void its warranty.
Cheers,
Colin-CL

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[Soundblaster Z] PC won't boot with Sound Card

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