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
    2011-03-14T07:54:44+00:00

    sorry for this late reaction.

    The soundblaster is a Creative X-Fi Titanium (pci-e)

    I use W7-64bits new install. Then i install sp1 and update via windows update. The soundblasterdrivers i use are the standard that came from windows update.

    I tested my computer to often for this problem. When i install x86 version of W7 i don't have any problems. WHen i install the x64 version the first game i start has the quit playing sound within 1 hour.

    After that i cant restore the sound and if i restart my system i got a red cross over my speakers so no soundcard found anymore.

    Yesterday i was so frustrated that i removed the soundblaster, and started a fress install of W7-64bits. I use my onboard sound now and i played for a couple of hours without any problem.

    So for me its bye bye soundblaster until the drivers are better.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-03-14T03:41:23+00:00

    Correction:  to see 4 GB of RAM or more, you must run a 64-bit version of Windows.  They don't have any 128-bit versions yet.  ;-)

    That was a typo on my part...my bad.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-03-13T22:27:22+00:00

    I have found that after installing the modded drivers, if you hit "Default" in the X-Fi console after install, this helps a great deal with sound quality.  This will wipe your speaker settings; you'll need to choose the proper speaker choice for your system again after doing this.  Also, if you have 5.1 speakers, you'll need to go into the THX console and select 7.1, then go into channel assignment and reassign the speakers.  After this, you can select 5.1 again and your rear channels will now work.

    Also, just FYI, this issue doesn't occur in a 32-bit OS because a 32-bit OS can't see even a full 4GB of RAM; to see 4GB or more, you must run a 128-bit version of Windows.

    I was running the latest Creative drivers for the X-Fi, but have recently taken my system to 8GB, so am back to the modded drivers.  It really cripples a 64-bit OS to hold it to less than 4GB of RAM.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-03-04T23:53:23+00:00

    I assume you have Windows 7 installed. Have you tried installing SP1, or tried any of the other suggestions in this discussion? Can you be more specific about your sound card and the drivers you are using?

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