Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Help??

[mikeo01]

Hi,

I have an annoying problem with my Sound Blaster, most people reading this have probably guessed it.

I have crackling and popping. I have tried PAX and Daniel K's drivers, reinstallation of the card with Creative drivers, reinstallation of Windows, Windows first-boot device driver installation, removing graphics card and reinstalling it, moving cables away from the card.

I have a HD 4870, Windows 7 64-bit 8GB, nForce 630A.

It worked with my old motherboard, but it can't be the 8GB RAM? Because when playing music it'll pop and screech after around 1 hour, when running ARMA II it crackles straight away. When I run Crysis its fine for around 2 hours, sometimes 1. If I have been running my PC on for a long time it happens straight away.

It doesn't sound like overheating? Because the problem goes away upon a restart. I have not conflicting hardware or software either. I have changed the IRQ in the BIOS... nothing is working.

But if its the 8GB RAM why would the sound work with some games, for different amounts of times, and after a restart.

help its getting on my nerves. Nothing is making sense, no conflicts, can't be overheating... I have tried everything.

Thanks everyone.

[IronWarrior]

Has this always been a problem?

I only had this fault twice, first time it lasted a week, tired everything to fix it, thought it could had been the speakers, but it wasn't, anyway after a week, the problem fixed itself.

Today, I had the same problem, but after rebooting it's fixed, I believe the problem was because I put my PC into sleep mode.

[jim]

I had this with my XtremeMusic ages ago I think, I assumed it was related to overheating because I had a graphics card right next to it. Never got to the bottom of it, it just stopped eventually. Whether that was because of something I did, or of its own accord, I'm not sure.

[Agent]

There are *still* well known issues with the nForce chipsets and X-fi's.

If it worked fine on your old board, you've changed to a nForce chipset and it's now playing up - my money is there.

[shaithis]

I would be Agent is bang on the money.

Even going near an nForce board makes me feel dirty these days

[mikeo01]

Now this is the weird part, my last motherboard was an nForce WITH the same graphics card.

Ever since moving to a new motherboard it started... and guess what, my graphics card is cooler due to MORE fans lol my CPU idles at 17c, and my graphics at 40c. My CPU USED to be 50c and GPU at 60c. Everything is much cooler, I thought it was an overheating problem but it isn't.

And considering the card works after restart, and doesn't like some games, but likes others I am stumped.

So I am stumped.

It ONLY started playing up with my new motherboard.

My motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P Rev 3.0 nForce 630A

My old motherboard was a Foxconn MCP61SM with an nForce 4 series chipset.

[mikeo01]

And also no it occurred when ever it wants to, regardless of putting it to sleep.

I have new speakers too, from Christmas so it isn't the speakers.

I am always careful with static electricity too, always discharge myself before touching any components.

[Mutley]

I'd echo the thought that its to do with nForce chipsets. Your new motherboard has a different nForce chipset than your older one...

Just to check the RAM, have you tried running with less RAM, removing some of the sticks?
Have you tried the SB in different PCI slots?

[Behemoth]

Got any other sound card you can try and see if you get the same issue ? My extreme gamer of the same card is working fine

[mikeo01]

Unfortunately can't test another card or card in another computer

But, without the 8GB RAM it seems that the sound is clear. I don't know if this will be the case long term though.

My x-fi is a really good card, haven't had it long and don't really want to scrap it for nothing the sound is really good on it, and don't really want to get another sound card.

But if there is no other options, I purpose I'm screwed?

Also to Mutley, I have only 1x PCI slot. The rest are 2x PCI-E x1 and PCI-E x16.

So I have only one PCI slot, which is right next to the Power LED, message LED and reset switch etc etc

[kalniel]

DPC latency.

Check it with this tool:
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

and follow the instructions on the page to hunt down the driver that's causing it. If it's not driver caused it can be motherboard chipset - I found my X58 IOH to be slightly overheating and causing high DPC latency which resulted in audio distortion in some games. Playing with voltages might help, or in my case just adding a case fan to cool the right chip completely solved the problem.

[garethjohnowen]

Never had a similar problem. Is it still under warranty? Get it switched!

[mikeo01]

Right running normal data for about 10 minutes showed no signs of problematic latency.

I tried running a game known to me for having high crackling and popping (ARMA II) to see if the graph would change, the graph stayed under 500 latency. But at one point, just after a crackling and pop effect happened one of the bars on the graph jumped up near to 1000 latency.

Stopped ARMA II and the graph calms down a bit.

Well, the bars on the graph never go over 500 latency but some are close to it.

Running Crysis the bars stayed the same, I had one popping and crackling in Crysis (which always occurs on the loading screen, after that its fine?). But no change on the graph.

But could the card overheat that suddenly, but be fine handling high audio data such as in Crysis. Why would the card struggle with loading menus but be much better at handling the game audio data.

As the graph shows no latency problems, then that suggests there's no kernel applications making a fuss?

Another thought, could the latency be due to my RAM? I really should point something out though. Crysis does jump around a bit, it isn't my graphics card as it jumps around a bit anyway on LOADING areas, such as loading the data for new areas and graphics. Once they are loaded Crysis does not jump and lag.

Obviously I have tried reducing graphics to low, still jumpy. Isn't my triple core, that should handle Crysis fine. This is related to the topic lol.

So I am thinking my "rated" 1333mhz RAM isn't up to the large amount of data running around between the devices?

Just a thought really. As 8GB RAM is fine for some people, but a thought could be why I get some jumpy areas, which is usually down to have fast your RAM can transfer data?

So my thoughts are:
Overheating
RAM

I can see why many people now dislike creative lol

[mikeo01]

Quick update. Usually as I mentioned the popping and crackling starts after a while when using the computer, or after using a game for a while.

Well I had only been running that Latency Checker for about 20 minutes just to see, and as soon as I closed it down and went to test the sound, there was no sound. In Sound in Windows, you can config it, and click Test and it shows that air wave sound coming out of the first speaker, well it was stuck there. Basically it froze. Then after a bit it finally came out, the sound, all crackling very bad. But upon restarting it is now OK.

Either the test data from the Latency Checker caused the Sound Blaster to overheat suddenly. Which must mean the heatsink isn't on properly, as it cools down quickly upon a restart? OR upon restarting the RAM is cleared, leaving a clear set for the new data of audio to be transferred over?

I am thinking now it might be the 64-bit addressing of RAM, or I have rubbish RAM quality that cannot handle high amounts of data. Not sure about the overheating.

But considering some people can run a Sound Blaster with the default drivers on a 64-bit setup, it can't surely be the addressing.


If I had the money I would definitely get an Xonar or Auzentech.

[kalniel]

To be honest, the main reason you hear about people having problems with Creative is simply that there are so many more out there being used, so the complaint rate rises proportionally. Their drivers can sometimes be a pain, but that's true of the competitors as well really.

But something doesn't sound right (hoho) especially the probably during the test sound. I still think the most likely cause is a bad driver in the system somewhere - I saw a computer that had all sorts of weird problems at the cause was a printer driver!

Have you tried taking sound acceleration down a notch or two? (dxdiag)

[mikeo01]

I don't have the option to reduce hardware acceleration in DxDiag for some reason. The slider bar is simply not there.

The only possible bad driver I have is my Mouse driver. Standard PS/2, it has onboard drivers so I cannot download drivers for the mouse, because there simply aren't any.

The drivers I do use are all up to date, I always install the device, then install the latest. Always reinstall the whole device before updating drivers to minimize problems.

The only real drivers I have downloaded are the graphics card drivers and the sound card. Everything else uses Windows update or Windows native drivers, such as the HDD, CPU etc.

Thanks for the help