For Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum & X-Fi Owners

[Wrathcaster]

Okay, so I got my system in late February, has been running pretty fucking great until... two weeks ago. My performance is fine overall and all the hardware on the computer is cool.. except for the Sound Blaster X-Fi. This fucker has been giving me nothing but trouble ever since the problems started for... a reason I cannot deduce. I haven't installed any new software, made any significant changes to my system, sneezed on it, etc. Regardless, my sound card has decided to be a bitch and fuck with me in a variety of ways:

1.) I cannot access any speaker setting controls aside from the THX Setup Console, which only allows me to select speaker configuration; doesn't give me the EAX and CMSS options. There used to be a way under my volume panel to adjust these... But for the life of me I cannot figure out why I can't access these settings or even see them. My memory is a little hazy now how I even changed these things before. The creative people have told me that I can click a CMSS-3D option in the mode switcher, which is denoted by a little 3d in a round button... But the button ain't there. Wtf?

2.) I am unable to access my mixer controls. Whenever I click on the mixer in the volume panel in the system tray, my cursor turns to a hourglass momentarily and then back to an arrow... But no mixer. It never pops up.

3.) I am unable to access my audio console... Whenever I click this in the creative volume panel, the same thing as #2 happens. No dough.

4.) Whenever I shut down my system, I always get a popup from the system saying that the EAX Module(think thats the name) has timed out and have an option to end the task or let it do it for me. This happens every time I shut down my computer, regardless of what I do. Sometimes it does it with another X-Fi related component, but I can't remember its name at the moment because it happens relatively infrequently compared to the EAX Module...

Perhaps now you may understand my frustration. My computer's audio is all but crippled... My CMSS and EAX apparently aren't working correctly and I'm getting sound from the wrong speakers in games (ie a dude right in front of me in oblivion swinging a sword at my face sounds like he's coming from behind me 20 feet away)... The mode switcher and the gay ass media center options are the only things that work right now ...of course the fucking media center would work, they are the worst collection of POS apps on my system.. they have no reason to break; they're already fucked as-is.

Any ideas? I'm hoping that I'm having an extreme attack of the dumbass(tm) and that this has nothing to do with my X-Fi, but I'm not that stupid. This shit is fucked and I don't know why. Halp me foh'ers!!1

[Wrathcaster]

Oh yeah! And now I can't even get the fucking uninstaller to remove the shit from my system so I can try a fresh install!! It's frozen at 28 percent!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRREAAAT! Now I've got a half-removed sound card in my computer! This is awesome! Creative FTW

[Cathan]

I'd format that shit and start over. Before you do that you could run a virus scan to see if you have some kind of infection but whether you do or not I would still format. If you format, reinstall and it still doesn't work, odds are it's a hardware issue. In that case I would be on the horn to Creative for what it's worth.

[Wrathcaster]

fuck me running. Are you serious? You think this is hardware? Motherfucker... I JUST bought this machine and dropped serious cash on it to ensure it would last and perform... And not have to be completely redone. This sucks

On a side note, Creative's tech support forums are a complete joke. Anyone know if Creative outsources its phone-based tech support to foreign countries? Because there's nothing I despise more than an Indian man using an utterly broken form of english to give me complicated technical advice. What the fuck was that? Did you just say turn on the dish washer and cook some eggs? The hell?!

[Wrathcaster]

Did a complete uninstall/reinstall and now most of the problems are fixed.. I can access EAX options and the mixer as well as speaker settings, although clicking on the audio console does nothing as before; not sure what that's all about. Additionally, virus/spyware scans from 4 different programs turned up nothing but simple cookie trackers.

[Valos]

Try removing all traces of your drivers. Basically do a uninstall. Run the program to remove everything left over. Install fresh. Maybe even with older drivers if it doesn't work with the newest.


http://www.drivercleaner.net/

[LexarkT11]

I have the x-fi plat and only had for about a week but it works very nice, no problems for me, the only issue i am having is the speakers keep cracking/a slight pop every few random seconds, even when nothing is going on, im not sure why it is doing it.