W7 64-bit Driver for Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme PCI-Express on Dell Precision T1500??

I thought I had already responded to this, or an identical post?

But, a comment on the SoundBlaster.  When Windows 7 came out, users with Dell Xfi cards were faced with finding Windows 7 specific drivers and users were reporting, on this forum, that the Retail Xfi drivers, for Xfi models that SoundBlaster supported, worked OK with the Dell OEM Xfi sound cards. 

In many cases, 32 bit drivers will work on a 64 bit OS.  I can't say specifically on the Xfi driver, but I have several 32 bit drivers installed on my Win 7 64 bit OS system.

Yes, fireberd, I saw your answer. Thanks for responding.

You told me that normally Windows 7 will find and install a suitable driver for the Sound Blaster X-Fi card.

And also that it's not excluded that generic Creative drivers will work with a Sound Blaster OEM PCI card provided by Dell.

However, I'm still at a loss what to do with the Creative s/w CD that came with my Pc. As I understand, a Sound Blaster card

will need a sound driver to work as such but then there are also some other features like the Creative Audio Control Panel and

Creative Diagnostics that I suspect are not included with the driver found and installed by Windows 7.

So what shall I do with the Creative CD? Shall I run it and what if it installs a driver other than the one Windows 7 will find ? 

Generally speaking, when there is no specific Dell driver available, is it a good sign or a bad one? Meaning is Dell

not providing a specific driver because none is needed or is it because there is no compatibility (yet) between the h/w in question

and a certain OS run on a Dell platform?

Hopefully you, or some other member, will be able to help me further in this matter.

The Win7 32 bit Dell driver disc with the added Soundblaster utilities and applications should also install in Win 7 64 bit.  I had a SoundBlaster Xfi souind card (Retail) and the software supplied with the card worked/installed on both 32 and 64 bit OS.

All the downloads on the Creative site for the Xfi Extreme Audio  HERE  list the same drivers and applications software for both Win 7 32 bit and 64 bit (actually the same driver download for XP/Vista/Win 7).

fireberd,

I've now completed the migration from Windows 7 Professional 32-bit to 64-bit on my Precision T1500.

Including installation of SP1, new system HD, one second HD and 16Gb of RAM. And migration of many

applications from 32-bit to 64-bit. And my two HP printers one of which (the 6310) is still fighting me and

insisting that it's only a printer/copier/fax and not also a scanner. :emotion-6:

I had concerns about the fact that Dell will not offer downloads of Creative drivers and software for

the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express sound adapter. I also had concerns about

whether the X-Fi Xtreme 32-bit XP, Vista and W7 drivers would work on a 64-bit W7 machine.

I've downloaded and installed the following three files from support@creative.com:

XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_04_0000.exe

DNT_PCAPP_LB_5_11_02.exe

CSL_PCAPPBETA_LB_2_61_49.exe

My T1500 has by now been up and running now with the new OS for a couple of days and so far I've seen no problems

with these three files from Creative. I didn't use the driver/application instal CD I got with my Pc from Dell a year ago not

knowing exactly what was on it in regard to the files available by download from Creative.

So end of story probably. It's perfectly safe to install the W7 64-bit driver/applications from Creative for this sound card

and there seems to be no need for any specific drivers from Dell. This is for the PCI-Express OEM-card delivered by Dell

with a new Pc and not for any integrated sound card which may need special drivers to work correctly (or, perhaps, at all).

Thanks, fireberd, for helping me out earlier in this matter.

I have that card installed into my XPS720 and I Only used the Creative drivers. Windows 7 even pushed one update to the driver about a month after I had installed the card. I have had the card in my system for over a year and a half