X-fi Gamer woes

KHAN · 2 Nov 2010 at 20:07

A couple of weeks ago my X-FI extremgamer soundcard died, I can see black marks on the outputs so I guess it blew somehow (I was using a crappy PSU at the time)

So I ordered another one from the net but when it come it was the Media-Centre one with the smaller metal bracket. No probs I thought i'll just switch the brackets over (The cards are identical and I was told it would work) but my computer doesn't even recognise it, I took the card up a m8's and it did come up on his as media card but it still wouldn't work and the drivers (the right ones) said it wasn't a recognised product.

So now i've sent that back and awaiting a replacement, but can anyone think of a reason it wont work? or am i just unlucky?!

Thanks!

Marsman · 2 Nov 2010 at 21:38

Might have been faulty. Best to wait, see how you get on with the replacement. Post here when you have tried the new one. If it works, then all is good. If not, we will see if we can figure out any reason for the issues.

chipps101 · 2 Nov 2010 at 23:50

did you install it into the same slot as the old one ? maybe when the old card died it damaged the pci slot

medison · 3 Nov 2010 at 02:44

sound card

last week my Sound Blaster x-fi platinum died as well.. using the onboard soundcard at the moment..

would there be any big difference now buying an x-fi PCIe soundcard or should i just stick to the onboard realtek card?

Marsman · 3 Nov 2010 at 11:26

X-Fi has features that are not likely present on on-board audio, depending what motherboard you have. So if you used things like CMSS 3D, then a replacement card will be needed.

If however, you use it just as a sound card, with none of the added features, if you did not notice a drop in sound quality by going to on-board audio from the X-Fi you had, maybe getting a replacement wont matter.

Personally, I think a sound card is always better than on-board. On-board audio has come a long way, and for some people is good enough. For many though, on-board audio is lacking. I've seen the odd person say they found no difference between on-board audio and a Xonar DX, yet many find the difference, huge.

It really depends on if you use what features the X-Fi has, and did you notice a loss of sound quality by moving to on-board.

KHAN · 3 Nov 2010 at 19:42

That was a hijack post about the on-board

I dont have it on my ASUS Commando

AtaRo · 4 Nov 2010 at 17:20

What OS are you using?
Creative has a patch called Product Identification Module Update which helps detection of X-Fi cards.
See here

KHAN · 7 Nov 2010 at 00:01

The replacement I got from them worked fine so it must have been a faulty card. Thanks all.

Marsman · 7 Nov 2010 at 00:10

Nice, glad everything is ok now.

darkwildchild79 · 7 Nov 2010 at 07:56

medison said:
last week my Sound Blaster x-fi platinum died as well.. using the onboard soundcard at the moment..

would there be any big difference now buying an x-fi PCIe soundcard or should i just stick to the onboard realtek card?

here should not be any differents with a pci and pci-e version, if you have a spare pci-e on the board it would be ideal to use, wish i did on my mother i would have been able to move my soundcard up and sli, now if i want to sli i would have to use my on board sound card since i also have a tv tuner in my system.