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X-Fi ExtremeMusic

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In for one, will give my Audigy 2ZS to my little brother since I broke his onboard sound (yes I did somehow, not sure how exactly, but I did manage to).
 
What a PITA this thing is to install. I replaced an Audigy 2ZS which had been working just fine. Install seemed to go fine, detected, installed drivers, etc. But no sound. In device manager every looked perfect - midi played as well but no other sound and CL diagnostic program crashed every time. Looked in sounds on control panel and it said "no audio device" present. Updated drivers to latest on CL site (10/06), switched PCI slots, read a bunch on CL forums and found lots of other with same problem and lots of convoluted solutions to try.... I ended up just doing a windows update and under drivers it came up with a 7/07 update and that fixed it. Why wasn't this on CL's site? It's working now but took probably two hours for what should have been 10 minutes.
 
It looks like this card can be HotRod. I have replaced the 4 Opamp and the sound is much better with music. Now I need to change out the main power capacitor. As far as shielding, not enough money right now.
 
still hasnt been shipped yet. or if it has, they didnt email me a tracking # yet

edit: jsut called them. they shipped it out yesterday. gave me the tracking # over the phone.
 
For people considering this vs. the XtremeGamer, keep in mind that the Gamer is NOT a full-profile card - look at a picture of it and you'll see what I mean. I don't know what effect this has on sound quality, but I've been avoiding the Gamer for this very reason. I'm gonna try to jump on this right now; $50 + free shipping.
 
Seems like the Ascendtech site is royally broken now; it's showing the card at $0.00 and won't let me log in or look up my password. Anyone else having problems?

EDIT: hmm, seems Firefox is having some strange issues with the site. IEtabbed for the fix...
 
i ordered my sound card last week, now i have it installed, everything seems to be in working order, packaging was bare bones, some bubble wrap and an anti static bag. If it gets here in one piece though i'm not complaining. FYI, ascendtech has a bad rep over in the slickdeals forum, but my transaction was normal.
 
Originally posted by: njdevilsfan87
In for one, will give my Audigy 2ZS to my little brother since I broke his onboard sound (yes I did somehow, not sure how exactly, but I did manage to).
Click to expand...

I have a couple of suggestions.

First of all, did you by any chance take any jumper pins off the front panel audio header? It's a 10-pin header on the motherboard that lets you hook up sound ports on the front of your case. If the right-speaker-out and left-speaker-out pins are left unjumpered and you disconnect the front audio ports, then the rear sound port will be disabled. (However, some late model motherboards do not require any jumper pins.) I once removed a motherboard from a case that had front audio ports and installed it in a case that didn't have front audio ports and I forgot to put the jumpers back on the audio header. It took me a while to figure out why the sound port wasn't working, and like you, I thought maybe it was broken until I realized what the problem was.

It's also possible that you are merely experiencing a software configuration problem. If the operating system detects the presence of your onboard sound chip, then it's probably working just fine. The speaker ports might be perfectly fine; perhaps they're just turned off through software. The latest versions of the Realtek audio control panel, for example, tend to be very confusing and they sometimes require some tinkering to get all of your sound ports to work correctly. I've had a heck of time getting the rear speaker port and the front speaker port (which I use as a headphone jack) to work at the same time on a couple of Gigabyte 965-based motherboards. It's all because of the auto-detect feature of the software which turns ports on and off when it detects that you have plugged or unplugged your headphones and speakers. If I unplug my headphones, I have to turn on the front speaker port manually in the control panel every time I plug them back in. It's a pain.

I hope this helps.
 
Got mine yesterday. Plugged it in and have no issues so far on XP32. It does have a few extra nice features that my Audigy 2ZS did not have.

Jiffer I'll take a look at his computer and see what's up. Software does detect the onboard sound, but when speakers are plugged in and turned on... this is actually weird. There is a green, a blue, and a pink slot for the onboard sound. The blue on (I believe rear sound) actually works with speakers plugged into it with Windows Media Player - but not everything else. He tried watching some videos on YouTube and gets no sound at all. The green slot (the regular one) results in no sound at all when the speakers are connected to it. The pink... well he doesn't have a microphone or anything so this isn't an issue.
 
Originally posted by: FuManChuu
exactly the deal I was looking for... man, onboard audio sucks 😀
Click to expand...

ALC889A $1

106dB signal to noise ratio
Bluray & HDDVD lossless audio support
7.1+2 channel high def outputs
CPU usage of 4-15% (depending on processor and sound load)
EAX 1/2 support

X-Fi $50-210

109dB signal to noise ratio
I didnt see mention of Bluray and HDDVD but ill assume it's there
7.1 Channel high def
X-Ram for games that support it (high end cards only)
EAX 3/4/5 support through wrapper (which uses up CPU)
Lower CPU usage in games that are native OpenAL
 
Does this card have the connector to hok up front panel/case connectors, ie the 2X5 pin Intel HD Audio Compatible Front Panel Header? If it does it should work for me as I need and use the front audio and usb connectors on my pc's case.

By the way, the cards in stock again at Ascendtech for $49.99 with free shipping.
 
Is this a worthwhile upgrade from a Creative SB Live! Value (WDM)? It's out of a Dell, which seems to be a much-crippled version of the card, at least according to Wikipedia. Most of what I do is listen to music; the speakers I have are the Altec Lansing V4121.
 
Originally posted by: Phris
Is this a worthwhile upgrade from a Creative SB Live! Value (WDM)? It's out of a Dell, which seems to be a much-crippled version of the card, at least according to Wikipedia. Most of what I do is listen to music; the speakers I have are the Altec Lansing V4121.
Click to expand...

I don't know those speakers. I can say that going from a Live! Value to the Audigy1 was nice, and going from the Audigy1 to the X-Fi XtremeMusic was VERY nice. I use Sennheiser HD580 headphones and the difference with good quality sources (256kb/s MP3 and CDs) is very noticeable.
Coming from a Live!, I recommend the switch if your speakers are half decent.
 
They were about $100 when I bought them, a decent 2.1 setup that can be a tad heavy on the bass here and there. Not the best speakers ever, but not the cheapest.
 
Originally posted by: dslabby
Does this card have the connector to hok up front panel/case connectors, ie the 2X5 pin Intel HD Audio Compatible Front Panel Header? If it does it should work for me as I need and use the front audio and usb connectors on my pc's case.

By the way, the cards in stock again at Ascendtech for $49.99 with free shipping.
Click to expand...

It has header pins, but they are NOT compatible with the norm that cases use. You will have to either purchase an adapter, or make one yourself (not that hard). Google for X-FI front audio cable you will find the info you need.
 
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