X-Fi soundcard problems...READ FOR INFO

[imaheadcase]

Listen up gang, i know tons of people are having "crackingling/popping" noises with there X-Fi sound cards.

Here is the offical thread at Creative forums for you to post your grief about it. Creative can NOT reproduce these problems lots of users are having. If you can post if you have a problem also please do so.

This is my FOURTH X-FI card from creative, in 2 diffrent system and still have that problem, its a problem for lots of people.

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs...ster&message.id=53201&jump=true#M53201

 

[imaheadcase]

UPDATE:

Hello everyone,

I have just received this from our Audio Product Development Group:

Over the last few months we have become aware of a relatively small number of Sound Blaster X-Fi users who are experiencing issues with crackling and popping sounds in very specific PC configurations. Over these months we have been investigating the reported issues in a wide array of PC systems, including those reported by customers. We have to date run extensive tests in 26 different configurations of MBs and have been unable to reproduce the symptoms reported.

Based on this we believe that the issues are caused by some very specific combinations of hardware, drivers and software. Thus we have recently contacted some forum users reporting the most severe instances and have gained access to their machines to debug these systems. We hope to be able to report back with some positive news shortly.

In the interim it should be noted that similar symptoms have been reported in other manufacturer?s forums and 3rd party forums with various audio solutions. It is becoming clear to us that this issue is not isolated to Sound Blaster products alone and therefore will not be a simple issue to resolve and could involve lengthy discussions with the motherboard manufacturers in question. Meanwhile we advise customers to review our knowledgebase as well as other posts in this forum on this subject as many users have resolved their issues with various work-arounds including, but not limited to, MB BIOS updates and settings.

We appreciate the frustration these types of issues cause and would like to assure our customers that this issue is a top priority for us to resolve and that every useful forum post is being reviewed and followed up in order to resolve it. We thank you for your continued support and we are confident of a resolution soon.



Cat

Of course this is pure market BS, since the small % is actully HUGE. They are just reporting the 88 PAGES of it on there forum not all the people who don't report it.

 

[imaheadcase]

Maybe Anand can use has powers to call CL to get a review of this card and test it on lots of systems?

 

[Bootstrap]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
Of course this is pure market BS, since the small % is actully HUGE. They are just reporting the 88 PAGES of it on there forum not all the people who don't report it.

How do you know that the small percentage is actually "huge"? There's obviously a problem concerning X-Fi boards and certain hardware configurations, but if this problem really affected a huge percentage of cards, why is it that

• I can't find a single review of this product on a computer or audiophile website in which the reviewer experienced the problem.

• Customer reviews on online store sites (Amazon, Newegg, etc) are overwhelmingly positive. Out of all the reviews I skimmed, I only noticed a few that mentioned the popping problem.

• If the problem really did affect a huge number of users, there would have to be some common underlying causes. However, even after 80 pages, there still seems to be a great deal of confusion as to what's actually causing the popping.

Now I've read the thread you posted, and I've been using Creative problems for a decade now, so I'm certainly familiar with the problems that they've had and their poor response, and I agree that they need to produce a fix or at least determine the source of the problem so that they can warn potential buyers before they throw away their money. However, I've seen nothing to contradict they're claim that this problem affects more than a small set of very specific hardware configurations. Obviously not everyone who has the problem is going to post in the thread you've posted, but that still says nothing about the number of people who bought the card and experienced no problems with it.

Again, I'm not trying to trivialize the problem, because there obviously is one. Creative has never had great support, and I know it's frustrating when things don't work as advertised. That said, I think you need to consider the possibility that the problem actually is due to unusual circumstances.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I have click pop probs too. Dont know why but it seems like when I play many games and change a lot of settings it begins to happen...

Who knows -- I've never buy from Creative again...bought a damn X-Fi Fatality and its a headache.

 

[imaheadcase]

The problem is huge, because they figure "small percentage" is only based on people who posted on that forum and called them for support, they don't count replacements from stores/returns/etc. I say its huge is because almost every single person i talked to with a X-FI has this problem, included most people in CS:S i talk to. That is huge when i just randomly ask people in games how they like there X-FI card and they tell me about that crackling/popping noises.

I've had the card in a few systems myself, each system totally diffrent config and got same result, including a SFF shuttle.

Btw most reviews did not test the card long enough to identify the problem. BUT the FIRST review of the X-Fi he reported such a problem but contributed it to just beta drivers and not the card. I can't for the life of me find the that website with it, i was thinkings THG but they only had a sneak peak of it.

 

[Bootstrap]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
The problem is huge, because they figure "small percentage" is only based on people who posted on that forum and called them for support, they don't count replacements from stores/returns/etc.

Again, that doesn't say anything about the percentage unless you have statistics on the number of people who haven't experienced problems.

I say its huge is because almost every single person i talked to with a X-FI has this problem, included most people in CS:S i talk to. That is huge when i just randomly ask people in games how they like there X-FI card and they tell me about that crackling/popping noises.

I've had the card in a few systems myself, each system totally diffrent config and got same result, including a SFF shuttle.

Btw most reviews did not test the card long enough to identify the problem. BUT the FIRST review of the X-Fi he reported such a problem but contributed it to just beta drivers and not the card. I can't for the life of me find the that website with it, i was thinkings THG but they only had a sneak peak of it.

Not long enough to identify the problem? Many of these reviews gave the card very high scores on a variety of qualitative and quantitative listening tests. It doesn't make sense that the cracking wouldn't have been reported in all but one review.

Maybe you just have a really unlucky group of CS friends (j/k). I do believe what you're saying, but it still doesn't add up that there aren't many angry reviews posted on online stores if this is really a hugely widespread problem. If anything, people with problems would be more likely to post their complaints than people who are praising the product.

 

[hardcandy2]

Has anyone tried doing this?
Ctrl-Alt-Delete, click on Processes tab, right click on the .exe for the Creative audio- I do not have this card and do not know the exact name of the .exe that it would be, try setting the priority to High or Real Time. It sounds (good pun there) like a sound latency problem.

 

[BFG10K]

Listen up gang, i know tons of people are having "crackingling/popping" noises with there X-Fi sound cards.

I'm not. I wonder how many of these people are overclocking/soft modding/hacking their system?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

ummm... I think just about everyone on this forum is doing that :-D that's why we're here!

Dont protect creative...why would you? Come on, people are having problems everywhere -- mostly with nForce 4 chipsets, though.

 

[Bootstrap]

Who's protecting Creative? There's obviously a problem, and Creative should fix it... my point is that it's misleading to claim that a "huge percentage" of people are having problems with X-Fi cards when there doesn't seem to be much evidence to support this claim, aside from a few people asserting that there are problems "everywhere".

 

[xtknight]

Crackling/popping? Just from inability of the DSP, sounds leaking in from system hardware (I heard my hard disk access through my integrated sound once), or something else? Why does this card have problems with nForce 4?

I get tons of pops when enabling EAX on kX drivers in Battlefield 2 on an nForce 4/Audigy 2 ZS. I wonder if that problem has similar roots.

 

[Bootstrap]

From the thread the OP referenced, there seem to be several different causes for the problems people are experiencing. Some people have the problems only in Battlefield 2, others only when they have some of the special features enabled (EAX, CMSS, etc), and others seem to have the problems whatever they do. Solutions that remove the problems for one person don't work for others... there might be some underlying flaw in the cards that can cause the popping to occur, but the situation in which it occurs almost seems to be unique for each system, which makes it a nightmare to try and isolate.

 

[imaheadcase]

"Again, that doesn't say anything about the percentage unless you have statistics on the number of people who haven't experienced problems. "

Well it is common knowledge in business people will return a item more often than trying to figure out what is wrong themselves. Everyone assumes its there problem from the start.

No reason to guess whats wrong with card, by looking at posts on Creative site its on all diffrent types of system configs.

Creative at least now admits its a problem, but still can't find a fix.

 

[Bootstrap]

Originally posted by: imaheadcase
"Again, that doesn't say anything about the percentage unless you have statistics on the number of people who haven't experienced problems. "

Well it is common knowledge in business people will return a item more often than trying to figure out what is wrong themselves. Everyone assumes its there problem from the start.

...So? This doesn't contradict what I said. Of course there are others who have experienced the problem that haven't posted on the forum. That still doesn't give any indication as to the number of people who have problems RELATIVE to the total number of cards sold. Someone estimated on the Creative thread that 25% or more of users are experiencing this problem (was this you?) -- there is NO WAY to infer that statistic by only looking at messages from a small number of people who have problems.

No reason to guess whats wrong with card, by looking at posts on Creative site its on all diffrent types of system configs.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at, but if many people are experiencing the same thing there has to be some common cause (or perhaps many different causes) to explain the defect.

Creative at least now admits its a problem, but still can't find a fix.

Hopefully they'll find one soon, but given their history and the fact that there seems to be no clear cause for this problem, I wouldn't count on it.

 

[phantom404]

The only kind of noise my card makes is posting. It makes a humming sound until the window logo appears then it goes away and then its all good. No problem durring games or anything.

 

[NeonFlak]

I have X-Fi Fatality's installed in every pc in my house and I've installed various X-Fi models for family, friends and clients. I have personally never heard any sort of sound distortion (crackling/popping) that wasn't "supposed" to be there. I have also not received a single complaint from anyone who I've installed these for.