BMoffa
02-16-2008, 06:57 PM
Shortly after building my new system, I started running into problem which I attributed to a failing Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound card. I had been using that card in my old system for several months without a problem. In the new system, I immediately experienced a number of problems. First were 2 freeze ups while in the game IL-2. After rebooting the sound went really tinny, but returned to normal after the system was idle for an hour or so. By tinny, I mean extremely so. It sounded like empty beverage cans being dump into a garbage can. The tinny sound thing happened a few more times after that, but these happened after non-error related reboots. Then I turned my system off for a few hours (something I rarely do). When I turned it back on the boot failed several times after the post, but finally it came up normal, except that the sound was tinny again. To me it seemed to require some component to build up a little heat before things would work and as far as I could tell the problem was in the X-Fi.
I went around in circles with the Creative support people for a while, but they finally agreed to exchange be X-Fi under warranty. In the mean time, I enabled the on-board sound. Using the on-board sound, I have not experience any problems. I did have one freeze, but from the system log I found that Windows automatic installer cranked up at exactly the time of the freeze.
Anyway, I just received the new X-Fi from Creative. I disabled the on-board sound, and uninstalled its drivers. I shut down and installed the X-Fi board. Then rebooted and installed the X-Fi drivers. Things looked good so far. But, when I rebooted after installing the X-Fi drivers, the BIOS boot completed then windows began to start. At the point where it would display the Alt+Ctrl+Del dialog, it instead flashed a blue screen (to fast to read) and automatically went into a reboot.
Any ideas? I suspect that old drivers may be lingering from past installs.
At this point I’m a bit frustrated. I’m back to using the on-board sound which isn’t all that bad and doesn’t seem to affect frame rates even with max sound settings. But, I hate to not being able use the $90 X-Fi.
XFX 680i LT SLT, Core 2 Quad Q6600, XFX 8800 GT, 4 Gb mem. , Windows XP SP2 (all current updates).
I went around in circles with the Creative support people for a while, but they finally agreed to exchange be X-Fi under warranty. In the mean time, I enabled the on-board sound. Using the on-board sound, I have not experience any problems. I did have one freeze, but from the system log I found that Windows automatic installer cranked up at exactly the time of the freeze.
Anyway, I just received the new X-Fi from Creative. I disabled the on-board sound, and uninstalled its drivers. I shut down and installed the X-Fi board. Then rebooted and installed the X-Fi drivers. Things looked good so far. But, when I rebooted after installing the X-Fi drivers, the BIOS boot completed then windows began to start. At the point where it would display the Alt+Ctrl+Del dialog, it instead flashed a blue screen (to fast to read) and automatically went into a reboot.
Any ideas? I suspect that old drivers may be lingering from past installs.
At this point I’m a bit frustrated. I’m back to using the on-board sound which isn’t all that bad and doesn’t seem to affect frame rates even with max sound settings. But, I hate to not being able use the $90 X-Fi.
XFX 680i LT SLT, Core 2 Quad Q6600, XFX 8800 GT, 4 Gb mem. , Windows XP SP2 (all current updates).