X-Fi cracking sound on Vista

[Evil-Vincent]

Hey, I recently upgraded to Vista 32-bit, liking it so far, but I do have a couple of problems with it.

I now ran into a problem with my X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty sound card.

I have installed the full Vista drivers, and patched to the latest version.

However when I play any kind of music I hear cracking and popping.. I hear this with both my Hi-Fi set and with my Headset. This has begun ever since I started running Vista, so Im pretty sure that is the problem.

Does anybody know a solution to this?

[dengyong]

Try moving you card to a different slot.

I have the same card and os with no problems.

[Mickey Padge]

Install WinXP? :p:

Vista is not really an upgrade, unless you are going 64bit for over 4GB of ram....

Have a look for modified drtivers maybe? Over here for example: http://www.youp-pax.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=13&page=1

Cheers and good luck...

[Kondik]

DO you have the new drivers or the from october 07 ? try both of them

[Evil-Vincent]

I was busy with some stuff, so I didnt have time to try your tips out.

I did have some time on my hands today, so I went testing. I completely deinstalled all x-fi drivers, and then moved the card to a different pci slot and then reinstalled everything. Still the same problem. But then I read this on Creative Knowledge base:

Further to the reported cases of crackling issues reported by owners of Sound Blaster X-Fi cards, we have extensively tested both Creative and non-Creative audio cards on motherboards where the issues were reported in an effort to isolate the root cause.
The findings indicate that circumstances causing these audio glitches only arise on nVidia's nForce 4 range of motherboards.

The Sound Blaster X-Fi card was designed to meet PCI bus standards and tolerances and this is the only range of motherboards that operate in this manner.
A full technical description is detailed below, but in brief, the PCI bus data requests are not being serviced leading to "gaps" in the audio, resulting in sudden dropouts to no audio and back again which gives rise to what is perceived as crackling.

As we have identified the resolution of this issue to be beyond our control, we would advise customers experiencing this issue to escalate their concerns to nVidia in an effor to seek a possible solution.

Technical Details

We have observed through direct observation of the PCI bus on the nVidia nForce 4 motherboards that when the crackle symptoms are occuring, the Sound Blaster X-Fi card PCI bus master memory requests for audio data are being held off (not serviced) for very long intervals.

We have observed peak holdoffs of up to 2 milliseconds in some cases. This is unusual chipset behavior that is beyond the ability of a hardware audio accelerator to compensate for in its internal buffering. The Sound Blaster X-Fi tolerance for these PCI holdoffs is approximately 120 microseconds peak holdoff, with a 1 microsecond average holdoff.

These design tolerances are based on observation of real PCI bus behavior on leading motherboards over a period of many motheboard hardware generations.

The nForce 4 motherboard is the first motherboard on which these extremely long PCI service holdoffs have been observed by Creative, where another PCI device in the system was not causing the holdoff.

How can Nvidia help me out with this problem?

I did not have this problem with Windows XP.

[zanzabar]

up ur pci bus speed by 5mhz, and give it an irq by its self

[Evil-Vincent]

How do I give it an interrupt request?

[kiwi]

I have a cracking sound but only in BF2 when I set to Utra quality. To be honest, I find this ridiculous because one of BF2 sound engine modules were coded exclusively for X-fi

No problems if I set to just High quality and in general

[Evil-Vincent]

Yeah I found out that it has to do with my Nvidia nForce 4 chipset. I get cracking whenever I get sound out of my speakers, and its not the speakers eather, because my headset has the same problem.

Its like every 30 secs or so it cracks, and it really gets on your nerves, especially because I payed 170E for a soundcard that was supposed to give clearer sound.

All problems started when I had installed Vista.

[Sparky]

I had that issue with my audigy 2 ZS, I'm now using unofficial drivers that someone linked me to. I think they are only for the audigy 2ZS though :/

[Donnie27]

I upgraded my Audigy 2ZS that worked perfectly with my A8N 16X to the X-Fi. It worked for me right out the box. I then tried to up grade my motherboard from the 16X to the 32X Deluxe, SCP out the wa-zoo. I gave up on trying to fix it and went back to the 16X A8N again, Zero problems. I never bothered with Vista but maybe next year. By the time the issues were worked out with the A8N 32, I'd upgraded to Conroe and a P965 that have no problems with X-Fi. Now using a P35 with ZERO problems as well.

[Evil-Vincent]

So you're saying the best thing I can do is buy a new motherboard?

Im a bit short on money right now.. But I could sell my current hardware.. Like a 3800x2 (stock 2.0ghz) that overclocks to 2.85ghz on 1.325v (load temp of 39C) and to 3.07ghz at 1.575v, should be able to get some money for that, I get 2300 3dmarks as cpu score in '06.

[Donnie27]

So you're saying the best thing I can do is buy a new motherboard?

Im a bit short on money right now.. But I could sell my current hardware.. Like a 3800x2 (stock 2.0ghz) that overclocks to 2.85ghz on 1.325v (load temp of 39C) and to 3.07ghz at 1.575v, should be able to get some money for that, I get 2300 3dmarks as cpu score in '06.

No. What you do is totally up to you. Like the other guy said, upgrade to WinXP;)

[Evil-Vincent]

Yeah, would be most obvious choice, had no problems with XP. But I like Vista... This sucks :( Well, I guess ill go back to XP PRO... Thanks for your help and time.

[iadstudio]

what do you have plugged into the SATA ports?

[Evil-Vincent]

A DVD writer, and DVD reader and two Samsung 250GB HDD's. All 4 SATA ports are used.

[Donnie27]

A DVD writer, and DVD reader and two Samsung 250GB HDD's. All 4 SATA ports are used.

I had 3 SATA HDD's, SATA CD-R and an IDE DVD-RW Drive connected. I've since removed one of the HDD's.

Look for a BIOS for your board that states it fixes problems with Creative Cards.

Check your USB Devices for compatibility with the rest of your system. So Far problems have been caused by Web Cames, a Scandisk USB Card reader, 1st Gen MS Mouse and I think one guy had problems with a USB HP All-In-One Scanner-Printer-Copier. The Problems are Random enough that others with these same/identical parts never experienced a single problem.

I've seen fewer problems with Intel Chip Sets.

[Anemone]

People are finding it's a motherboard issue and that Vista keeps the driver at a higher level exposing the issue more.

Seems to me a mobo and a license to XP are in the same ballpark for that cpu, and I'd choose the mobo option myself.

Vista 64
P5W64
X6800
Xifi elite

and no issues.

[Evil-Vincent]

I have tried EVERYTHING, without result :(

Tried my card on my dad's pc with P35 mobo, and no issues, so my soundcard is ok.

I have found a thread on the creative forums with over 1400 replis with people having similar problems..

I am thinking of selling my gear and buying a new system with something like:
Intel X38 system
Q9450
4GB Ram.

Still sucks that I have to because Creative doesnt fix this problem, and still denies it.

[fireice2]

nice upgrade plan there mate. :up:

[Donnie27]

I have tried EVERYTHING, without result :(

Tried my card on my dad's pc with P35 mobo, and no issues, so my soundcard is ok.

I have found a thread on the creative forums with over 1400 replis with people having similar problems..

I am thinking of selling my gear and buying a new system with something like:
Intel X38 system
Q9450
4GB Ram.

Still sucks that I have to because Creative doesnt fix this problem, and still denies it.

Sure but I'm not so sure this is a *solely a Creative problem. A lot of work was Done to lower its requirements so it would work better with lower Quality Chipsets. Even on lower priced boards overclocked to hilt, weak power supplies, overburdened motherboard and Power Supply, stressed out RAM and etc.................... Of those 1400 replies, look at how many got their problem fixed?

Also, beware of Gorilla Marketers!

[ROBSCIX]

Vista, seems to be the cause of many troubles with many different soundcards on different mobos. You tested the card and it is fine. The card and the mobo worked fine under XP...just seems to be Vista and your current config.
Maybe Vista SP1 has a fix....

[Evil-Vincent]

Vista, seems to be the cause of many troubles with many different soundcards on different mobos. You tested the card and it is fine. The card and the mobo worked fine under XP...just seems to be Vista and your current config.
Maybe Vista SP1 has a fix....
Im still hoping ANY update will fix it. Stupid thing is I have a dutch version of Vista, so Ill have to wait another 6 weeks for SP1 to come out.

[gurusan]

that's odd...I had problems when I had my XFI and Vista 64 + 4gb ram, but the latest driver fixed it.

[[XC] riptide]

Hmmm. I'm haiving similar problems with onboard audio and the NVidia Forceware drivers for a new 8800GTX. Seems they are causing a large (10,000 microseconds) delay in DPC requests in the system. Pretty much what that guy quoted above from Creative. But this is a Asus P5K. Stoopid nvidia. I should have stayed with ATi.

[Solouko]

I had 3 SATA HDD's, SATA CD-R and an IDE DVD-RW Drive connected. I've since removed one of the HDD's.

Look for a BIOS for your board that states it fixes problems with Creative Cards.

Check your USB Devices for compatibility with the rest of your system. So Far problems have been caused by Web Cames, a Scandisk USB Card reader, 1st Gen MS Mouse and I think one guy had problems with a USB HP All-In-One Scanner-Printer-Copier. The Problems are Random enough that others with these same/identical parts never experienced a single problem.

I've seen fewer problems with Intel Chip Sets.


Dear god.. i've just spent an hour trying to solve this problem on my brand new X-fi PCI-e X1 card, and when i saw the usb thing i unpluged my webcam of all things and it worked instantly!!!

that's retarded, but i dont care as it works, and i have half a dozen USB slots on this PC each using different drivers and i can chop and change them accordingly.

but i just really had to say thank you, i've been on about 20 other forums looking for answers i should have just come straight to where the experts are ;)



Edit:
Ok this F*****G thing is still not working right, now my microphone's stoped working too! this thing's really netting on my nervs now

[Donster]

im having the same :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty issue with a new xfi titanium and vista 32 ... popping cracking :(

[Solouko]

Ok, i've figured out what was wrong with my mic, my coundcard had eaten all my audio codecs!!! :mad:

but now that they have been reinstalled everything's working fine.

i have a feelings alot of these problems might be caused by corrupt codes, if the card can cause a codec to go missing completly, when it was installed 2 minutes before and working then that might help explain the crakling, i've installed codec packs before which has cause the same problem as the crackling.

i will sugest to anyone who's having this problem and who has tried things such as increasing the PCI bus, chanding slots, reinstalling drivers and removing IUSB devices to try this:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ace_mega_codecs_pack.htm

This is a VERY comprohencive codec pack, and if you first uninsall all your MP3 codecs before installing it i have a feeling alot of people's problems might be fixed.

Give it a try and let us know, i hate it when somone finds the answer and doesnt reply with how they fixed it -_-'

[Solouko]

Just a little update, i'm 100% certain that there is a link between the X-Fi cards and my N-force Ultra motherboard (DFI lanparty btw) it seems that the A-FI conflicts with the front USB ports, i recently tried pluging a USB hard drive into them and almost instantly my computer stoped working. The computer would freeze on startup, couldn't open folders and every time i started media player it would crash.

It turns out that the X-Fi card had eaten (corrupted) another audio codec, namely my LAME MP3 CODEC which was common to most of my programs on startup which caused the freezing. I can now recomend to anyone trying to use the X-Fi card on and NF4 motherboard to dissable the front USB driver to prevent this conflict.

also, i noticed that in my BIOS i have some advanced IRQ settings with the opporunity to 'reserve' specific IRQs, could somone please advse me if messing around with these settings might halp resolve this conflict or how i might assertain which IRQ's used by the USB ports and the X-Fi card so that i can start experimenting?

Thank you and i hope to anyone reading this in the future that it's some help.

[Donnie27]

Just a little update, i'm 100% certain that there is a link between the X-Fi cards and my N-force Ultra motherboard (DFI lanparty btw) it seems that the A-FI conflicts with the front USB ports, i recently tried pluging a USB hard drive into them and almost instantly my computer stoped working. The computer would freeze on startup, couldn't open folders and every time i started media player it would crash.

It turns out that the X-Fi card had eaten (corrupted) another audio codec, namely my LAME MP3 CODEC which was common to most of my programs on startup which caused the freezing. I can now recomend to anyone trying to use the X-Fi card on and NF4 motherboard to dissable the front USB driver to prevent this conflict.

also, i noticed that in my BIOS i have some advanced IRQ settings with the opporunity to 'reserve' specific IRQs, could somone please advse me if messing around with these settings might halp resolve this conflict or how i might assertain which IRQ's used by the USB ports and the X-Fi card so that i can start experimenting?

Thank you and i hope to anyone reading this in the future that it's some help.

There's another thread here where we talked about USB devices of all kinds causing problems. Not just for creative cards but TV Cards, Controller Cards and etc.... as well. Do a forum search?