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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.

Was this answer helpful?

10 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

75 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2011-01-15T13:47:53+00:00

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2011-01-15T13:02:41+00:00

    Hi all,

    I have been tracking this thread for some time as it is one of the most progressive at solving this problem with X-Fi Xtream cards. I have the Tinny sound followed bt crackling issue.  My set up is.

    Dell XPS 8100 2.8GHz i7

    8Gb RAM

    Windows 7 64 bit

    Creative Technology SB X-Fi Xtream Audio PCI Express.

    This is the exact system that Dell shipped to me last March. Is your X-Fi Xtream Music card a PCI Express based card. If so how can they say it is not compatible under paid support. They ship my system as a set build. I have posted on the Dell Community desktop/audio forum and got a rough welcome for being anti Dell. This is only my sixth Dell after all.

    All this driver mess is becoming a serious embarrassment for all the companies involved. I am getting the feeling they are hoping that we all write off what we have spent on these cards and quietly just go away.

    I am paranoid about using this third party driver as I am still under warranty and something has to give on all this soon. How much money has been spent and time wasted trying to solve a problem that these  technical support teams are supposed to be doing.

    I have exactly the same spec as you and suffer the same problem. I have yet to find a solution that works. Can anybody point us in the right direction?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-01-11T07:01:24+00:00

    Hi, I was wondering if anyone has found a working solution to this problem. I have tried every suggestion mentioned in this thread, and none has resolved the problem for me. I have a Dell E520 desktop with 4GB of installed RAM, and a SB X-fi Extreme Music sound card (SB0460). I just upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) from Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit). It is my belief that the problem lies with Windows 7 and with the sound card drivers. I have 4GB of installed RAM, but system properties only shows 3GB as useable RAM. 1027MB of RAM is hardware reserved in the resource monitor. It's here where I believe the problem lies. The sound card functions normally every time I reboot the system, but as the physical memory is allocated to other programs and resources, the sound quality deteriorates to barely audible. My system also came with a SigmaTel HD integrated audio which experiences the same exact problem, and it this that led me to suspect the hardware reserved RAM as the problem, as opposed to the drivers. Not sure why or what is reserving the RAM for the hardware. I have already tested my RAM with MemTest, and uninstalled and reinstalled the sound card. I have also checked my MSConfig, and the Maximum Memory in Boot Options is not checked, although I have tried reducing this to 3GB and to 2GB, which does not resolve the problem. If anyone has any new suggestions on how to resolve this, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank for your help in advance.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-26T15:09:53+00:00

    I upgraded my Windows 32 bit Vista computer to Windows 7 64bit several months ago. The only changes I made to the computer at the time was to upgrade the memory from 4 gigs to 8 gigs. I have a Creative SB X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card & an X-Fi I/O Drive in the computer connected to 2 standard low cost speakers. This seup worked fine with 32 bit Vista.

    I started getting the static sound from the start. If I rebooted the computer, the sound would be fine for a while & then the static would start again. I upgraded drivers, changed the memory settings, changed speakers to Bose Companion 2's & disabled everything in the Creative Control Panel. None of that made any difference. I finally went back to using the on board sound card, but I really missed the front panel headphone jack & volume control.

    This week I decided try to get the Creative card to work again. I updated all of the Creative software & drivers. I still had the static but not all of time after it once started. It would come & go. I decided to go to the Creative Control Panel & just start changing settings to see if static would go away. If the static did not go away after changing a setting, I changed the setting back to its old setting before changing another setting. None of the changes helped.

    Since I had 2.1 speakers I did not even consider changing the speaker setting from the 2/2.1. As a last ditch effort, I changed that setting to 5.1 & the static went away & the sound quality vastly improved. I then tried the 7.1 setting & the sound quality got even better. 

    I have been playing audio through the Creative card for over an hour & a half, with not a hint of static & the best sound quality I have ever gotten on a computer. 

    I have also tried changing all settings in the Creative Control Panel with no return of the static.

    I do not know why changing the speaker setting worked, but it did.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments