Sound Blaster X-Fi and Windows 7 64-bit

Anonymous
2009-10-23T03:31:55+00:00

I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi on a Dell XPS 710.  Installed Windows 7 64-bit.  Everything went great.  Downloaded and installed the new drivers from Creative for this sound card and Windows 7/64.  It installs but I get a staticy echo sound to everything.  Is there a fix?  The drivers are dated 6/2009.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2009-10-29T22:07:34+00:00

: WORKAROUND:

I claim NO responsibility if you mess this up but you can use this as a temporary work around until it is resolved by creative labs without removing memory... physically.

First run MSCONFIG

select the boot tab

select advanced options

under max memory select 3990 (or any value under 4 GB is fine IE anything less than 1024 * 4)

This will reduce the amount of memory that the PC uses which will allow you to hear the audio.  There is also BETA testing of newer drivers from Creative (the most recent batch of BETAS did not resolve the issue) that I am a part of.  When there is a working beta I will respond so we can all utilize our 64x machines.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-11-14T11:01:51+00:00

    Again, a bit more information since my post in April.

    I've tried 3rd party drivers, but they fail after a while in just the same way.

    I enrolled on a CL beta test program - the first beta driver clean install worked for about 6 weeks and then failed.

    I've installed the original MS generic 64-bit drivers and so far so good. They may not have all the bells and whistles of CL drivers, but I can't tell the difference on that score other than they work and continue to do so (so far!!). I just have to make sure that Windows Update doesn't "upgrade" them to the CL version.

    There is a very similar bug, often associated with mechanical drives and possibly the use of headphones. The output device changes from the speakers to SPDIF after the headphones have been plugged in and out. The speakers become greyed out and won't go back till the driver is reinstalled.

    I believe that there is also a time element to the problem, it takes several weeks or even months before the problem shows up after a clean install. Which leads me to believe that some sort of information the driver stores (registry?) changes / grows over time until it causes the problem. Maybe it's some sort of time-out during the driver initialisation.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-11-11T22:58:52+00:00

    This is not a solution, just an update with what may be a useful bit of info.

    First, I gave my X-Fi Elite Pro to my wife, because it works perfectly with her motherboard (Asus PN5E-SLI) with Win-7 64-bit and 8 GB.  So she's happy.  :o)

    I bought an X-Fi Titanium.  I'm happy to report that the Titanium is working perfectly with all 8 GB visible to Windows 7.  I had some concern that it might have the same popping and hissing in OpenAL games and apps but the sound is clean and clear.  So it seems to play well with my XFX 750i motherboard.

    Now I'm not recommending you buy anther Creative card; in fact, considering the abysmal state of their support, I sort of recommend that you don't.  I took the chance because several of my favorite games benefit from having the EAX extensions available.  I looked at the Xonar cards but their EAX implementation doesn't seem nearly as robust.

    I'm providing this information just so you know that the situation was never resolved by Creative and I finally gave up and worked around it.  I can't swear that anyone else with either of these motherboards would have a similar experience.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-09-08T13:03:36+00:00

    Has a new driver been release from Beta that will fix this issue?

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-06-10T14:44:07+00:00

    Where can I find this driver please?

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