X-Fi Crackles

daddyorchips

daddyorchips

daddyorchips

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Joined
9 Jun 2004
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589
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London, England
Having just set up a new PC below and at the same time moved from (supposedly naff) onboard sound to Creative's new baby, I'm experiencing annoying "crackles" (or pops) from certain sound effects in games. It only appears to be noticeable on high pitch sounds - like the noise that the lego coins make when collecting them in Lego Star Wars II - and it's really starting to grate. Lower frequency bassy effects or anything nearer the mid range don't appear to exhibit these crackles.

The odd part is that it doesn't effect music (in game) or playing off the desktop. Movies seem ok too. I've tested the card out using my speakers and some headphones and both exhibit this anomaly, and am using the latest drivers (currently mentioned on the front page).

Currently, master volume is set to 79% with wave volume at 66%.

System spec is below. I'm running the X-Fi in PCI slot 2 (one up from the bottom and fairly far away from my gfx card). Should I try moving the card further away by putting it in PCI slot 1? Have I got a duff card?

Help! :(


Quick Spec Overview-

Intel Conroe E6600 (o/c'ed to 3ghz)
2gb G.Skill HZ Ram (running at 1:1 666mhz 4-4-4-12, dual channel)
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
ATI X1900XT-X PCI-E
Asus P5W-DH Deluxe
600W Seasonic PSU

Also, it may be worth noting that I've got my PCI frequency locked to 33.33mhz in the bios. I've tried setting this to Auto and it made no difference. Onboard sound is also disabled.
 
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Xfi's crackling are unfortunately quite common (check the creative forum/message board for more details), I get it quite regularly and end up having to uninstall/reinstall the drivers to get it to stop happening.
 
So I should try completely removing the Creative drivers and reinstalling them? Might give swapping it to another PCI slot a go at the same time then!
 
Seems that the issue arises when the X-Fi is combined with Nvidia nForce 4 motherboards... Since the P5W-DH is based on the Intel 975 chipset, surely this shouldn't be an issue? :confused:
 
I think it's a widely known problem with the X-Fi. I know the whole crashing and other horrible things happening is on NF4 mobos.

I really don't know whether to get an X-Fi or not, I hear so many bad reports about drivers, things like crackling and popping etc etc.

I'm wondering whether it's really worth it :( Creative really need a good competitor.
 
I've never noticed any crackling or popping with mine & i'm running on a NF4 mobo , i use earphones 99% of the time,so if there was any i guess i would have noticed it

Rob
 
mi9tchy said:
i've got nearly the same spec and have a problem with my x-fi it starts off when i've just installed it but after playing music or a game for 5mins it starts to crackle then the sound dissappears, if i reinstall the drivers its fine for the next 5-10mins then the same thing happens
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i have had that problem search for my posts on creative as vickister and same name on here its horrible but i have given up withthem
 
mi9tchy said:
i've got nearly the same spec and have a problem with my x-fi it starts off when i've just installed it but after playing music or a game for 5mins it starts to crackle then the sound dissappears, if i reinstall the drivers its fine for the next 5-10mins then the same thing happens
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Which PCI slots have you tested the X-Fi in?
 
i know how to solve the crackling, its coming from your inputs into the sound card, just mute all inputs, go into the volume control panel and mute auxilary, line in, sp dif in, digital in, auxilary 2 and line in 2, also mic in unless you actually use a mic then u shuld b fine, after muting all inputs i have never had a problem with crackling, its just interference, the sound card thinks u r trying to send something through the input and it plays it, bbut its usually just interference very common

i reckon this should be stickied as loads of people have had problems with this including myself but i found a solution
 
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Psycho Sonny said:
i know how to solve the crackling, its coming from your inputs into the sound card, just mute all inputs, go into the volume control panel and mute auxilary, line in, sp dif in, digital in, auxilary 2 and line in 2, also mic in unless you actually use a mic then u shuld b fine, after muting all inputs i have never had a problem with crackling, its just interference, the sound card thinks u r trying to send something through the input and it plays it, bbut its usually just interference very common

i reckon this should be stickied as loads of people have had problems with this including myself but i found a solution
Click to expand...

Makes absolutely no difference.
 
I seemed to get crackling as well but only on high frequencies. I have just changed the pci latency of the card to 64 and so far no more crackling.

The higher the number the more access time the card has on the pci bus, the default was 32.
 
M0T said:
I seemed to get crackling as well but only on high frequencies. I have just changed the pci latency of the card to 64 and so far no more crackling.

The higher the number the more access time the card has on the pci bus, the default was 32.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, mine has already defaulted to 64 (as set in the bios too). Will try out changing the values to 32 and above/below.

Cheers for your suggestion Psycho Sonny - will give it a shot!
 
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