Terrible Sound with SLI enabled

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2007 at 09:50

Guys,

I really hope you can help me. I am having terrible problems with my sound crackling only when I have SLI enabled. I have tried the following :-

Sound Blaster XFI Gamer Fatality Pro – Quality is absolutely atrocious and completely unusable
Onboard audio – crackles whenever ‘video’ is involved, IE if I keep Windows Media player minimized its ok, as soon as I can watch the video effects it crackles badly.
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro – Same as onboard Audio

I have spoken to DFI who say the problem doesn’t lie with them, and Nvidia seem to suggest the same with regards to their chipset driver. As for Creative, well you can probably take a guess. They didn’t even bother responding!

It’s very frustrating as I spent over £2500 on my pc and the sound sucks, ruining my gaming experience

Should I bite the bullet and buy a different brand? If so then my XFI is up for sale! If anyone is interested!

Thanks

DFI Lanparty NF680i LT
4 x 2GB Corsair XMS2
Intel Q6600 G0 Quad Core
Enermax Galaxy 1000w
2 x 8800GTX
Coolermaster Stacker 832

z0mbi3 · 14 Sep 2007 at 09:55

Sounds like your xfi is being starved of bandwidth.

Things to try would be moving the card closer to the CPU and possibly adjusting the PCI latency.

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:06

Any idea how i can adjust the PCI latency on Vista x64?

MeatLoaf · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:08

Its a common problem with X-Fi + 8800 SLI + More than 2Gb RAM + 680i chipset + vista

Check out the creative forums

z0mbi3 · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:24

somewhatdamaged said:
Any idea how i can adjust the PCI latency on Vista x64?

Bios I reckon?

Anyway as Meatloaf said it's a well known issue, then things like latency and card position would have already been tried and tested. Just head on over to the Creative forums and get reading.

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:26

Yeah i looked on them, loads of posts and not a single definite answer from Creative

I am disappointed with Creative's lack of customer support. I really feel like they couldn't care less about the 5% of people having problems, as long as 95% are happy (or simply not bothering complaining)

Can anyone suggest a good PCI sound card that WON'T crackle with SLI enabled?

I was hoping the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Soundcard would work fine but don't want to splash out in case it doesn't work either!!

z0mbi3 · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:29

Trouble is if it is a bandwidth issue then it's difficult to assign blame. Lack of bandwidth isn't something creative could fix in software or firmware because it falls to the mobo and other devices plugged into it.

Are you able to move the sound card closer to the cpu?

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:34

The sound card is in the bottom slot, i tried moving it up 2 slots but it didn't make any difference.

The only other thing to try would be to use the bottom two PCI-E slots for the graphics cards, meaning it would be running at 8x instead of 16x which i don't really want to do

Surely, someone at one of these companies must have tried various sound cards in a board that uses SLI before selling them? It seems crazy!

z0mbi3 · 14 Sep 2007 at 10:39

somewhatdamaged said:
The only other thing to try would be to use the bottom two PCI-E slots for the graphics cards, meaning it would be running at 8x instead of 16x which i don't really want to do

Just give it a go.

Try this as well http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

Not sure if it works in Vista or not but it won't hurt to give it a go.

edit:

I'd try PCI Latency Tool first.

HEADRAT · 28 Dec 2007 at 17:44

Can't get this tool to work with x64, anybody know how to either get this working in Vista X64 or have another tool that works?