Sound Blaster X-Fi not working in Windows 7 64bit

[wax0pal]

Put simply, I have no sound.

Here’s my hardware:

Intel Core2 duo
Asus P5E Motherboard
4GB DDR2 1066 RAM
Gigabyte HD 6950 Video Card
Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series PCIe
1TB Samsung SATA2 HDD
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech mx1000 mouse
(only mention the latter three only to be thorough)

OS is Windows 7 64bit – freshly installed and fully updated


All motherboard, graphics card, and Logitech drivers are fully updated*. This includes all current chipset drivers for the MB. I have yet to flash any bios up to current, as I am waiting to do that as a last resort – it makes me nervous.

Here’s the simple stuff. The motherboard does come with “onboard” sound of a fashion. It is in the form of a PCIe card, which I do not have. Never the less, I have tried my little driver dance, described below, with the “onboard” sound both enabled and disabled. I have also tried both of the PCIe slots on my board with the same results. The SB speaker output is set to be my default device, the front/rear fader is in the center and the manual volume knob is set to a bit over half. I have tested the speakers (creative 5.1 system, had it for years) by plugging each of the jacks into my phone while playing an MP3, speaker connections are solid. The card lights up and is listed in the device manager as functioning properly (under the name “HD Sound Device” and then as “Creative SB X-Fi” with drivers installed). There are no IRQ conflicts.


*Here’s what I have tried driver wise for the soundcard, roughly in order. Downloaded and installed just the current driver from the creative website (Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Driver 2.17.0008 ). Speakers “pop” upon booting, as if initializing but generate no sound. It’s almost as if the speakers are functioning but the volume is turned all the way down in the sounds control panel. Uninstalled that driver and, via the device manager, the SB card. Rebooted and used the software disk that came with the card (the box has the yellow sticker that says Windows 7 compatible). After using the automatic update utility to update everything, I ran Creative Diagnostics. It fails for the following tests: DirectSound Tests, SPDIF and Speakers. During the speaker portion of the test the message reads “Playback of wave files failed”. I have disabled the only non creative item in my sound control panel, it is the HDMI sound output for my video card. The speaker icon in my taskbar has a red X on it with the float over message reading “No audio device is installed”. Any attempt to configure the speakers results in a similar error. Next, removed all the creative software and drivers. Ran a disk cleaner. Rebooting along the way as needed. Installed PID_W7PCAPP_US_2_11_01 from the creative website (supposed to help with this issue). Reboot. Nada. Installed everything from the install disk again and updated. Same result. Rinse and repeat, this time using the Daniel K drivers. Same result. Repeated again, with the PAX drivers…no dice.

Im running out of ideas.

Some oddities worth noting include:

-On a couple of the above mentioned attempts the creative software failed acknowledge the card. Telling me that there is no supported device installed – in spite of the fact that windows lists it correctly in the device manager.

-After updating all the software via the creative updater (this is on my most recent attempt) the updater itself vanished off my system.

-If I open the volume panel (VolPanlu) I see a grayed out volume knob set to 0 with no way to change it.

-DxDiag doesn’t like the card either. It opens with “Error: Problem getting extra sound info” but does in fact list both the speakers (Creative SB X-Fi) and the SPDIF Out (Creative SB X-Fi)

-When I plug in headphones to the front panel the speakers cut out like they are supposed to and, here’s the weirdest thing of all…when I plug in a microphone to the front panel mic jack and speak, I can hear my voice through the speakers!!! Come on!!!

-Freshly discovered that the creative midi player plays midi sounds just fine!!! All speakers come through crisp and clear.


Been messing with this for days and am running out of ideas. I have read up on the issue in many many many forums and cant seem to get any traction on this problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.



--
~Tony.

[CGale]

There are certain things that you can try. I hope the sound is in working condition. Try this click on Start > type msconfig > boot > advance > choose 3990 under max memory. By this you are reducing the amount ram used by pc. Anyhow this issue is common with many 64bit systems. There are some beta drivers for this card on creative site. You can try them also.