X-Fi Screech of Death

Painful as it may sound, I would consider a fresh install of VISTA and install those drivers from the word go. Whatever was shipped with the machine may be still causing issues, or something done along the way to try to fix the problem may be blocking things.

I know that the first thing I did when I got my machine was to format it, and install VISTA ULTIMATE from an MS install disk. The drivers that got installed by the VISTA installer I replaced directly with the above drivers and I haven't had an issue since.

Regards,

Gabhan

You're running Vista Gab? I've been running XP...

I should also note now that from the time that I havent had this issue I had reinstalled my XP....Long story with a nuclear virus. Instead of installing the drivers from the disk I went straight for the latest ones (as you should do regardless)...

Perhaps it's an issue with the DELL drivers that come on the XPS?

Just a quick update, I have Dell coming out on Monday to replace a component directly related to the soundcard problem.... the system fan!!!:smileysurprised:

Give me strength. 

Well the engineer left after changing 0 parts. He got onto Dell tech who said on Friday they would call me this afternoon. So far today and its now 10.34PM I have received 0 calls from Dell.

The engineer who was round was told Dell would call me within 24 hours, thats lunchtime tomorrow. I can't see a call being likely. 

Dell really deserves a round of applause for that I think! 

I will be honest with you guys, when other users on this forum said I am speaking to a brick wall they really were true. When I was discussing buying my PC and was told to buy the X-Fi retail and save myself the hassle I never thought it would be as bad as this. Dell are good at one thing, thats treating their customers like rubbish. Dell don't care if your having trouble, I very much doubt if they are even doing anything to find the problem. From my experience it wouldn't surprise me. 

I remember when I recommended Dell having only used them at work, well those days are firmly behind me. I would recommend a eMachine over a Dell. At least they will get treated with some respect and as if they matter. Where Dell would be without their customers I'm not sure, but they really don't care how customers feel.

*chuckle* :) I'd recommend many, many other PC brands before I recommend Dell.

Bearing in mind this is the XPS support which is supposed to be "premium" I really hate to think what kind of support you get if you buy an Inspiron. Maybe Dell abuse you down the phone?? Or maybe they try to extort money out of you on the phone.

Nope I have had nothing from him, although credit to him, he has believe it or not been the only person at Dell whom I have spoke to who has been knowledgeable or told me useful information. Chris is actually a really helpful guy, sadly it seems in this case Dell have put a muzzle on anybody speaking about the issue. 

I would be happy if Dell came up with a solution that will work, so far it seems to be a load of workarounds that after a while your back to square one. That's just a waste of time and at the end of the day it leaves you with a faulty computer.

Dell currently have 2 hours and 20 minutes left before they have failed to call me yet again. Seems to be coming something of a habit this. 

If anybody reading this feels that Michael Dell would befit from knowing the situation you can email him: Michael_Dell@ .com sadly I have already tried this and it seems that even the guy at the top couldn't care how his customers are treated either.

Well done Dell! You have failed yet again :) 2 failed calls in the space of 2 days, not to mention the wasted engineers visit.

This ain't going well, total incompetence and lack of time keeping ain't good for customer service. Well done for making one very unhappy customer though.

Surprised? Not really. Dell really are the most useless company I have ever come across. Thats being nice to them as well! Excluding those on the Dell forums, who I have to give credit to them all!

Hi People, I'm trying to solve an issue that I'm having with my audio, I just got my XPS 630i (less than 2 month) with the SB XtremeGamer Card but I have noticed that when I'm playing music (I use Winamp and sometime Windows Media Player), I can hear some noise in the background but only when I scroll up or down or move manually the side bar up and down. I have download the drivers in the support page but  still have this bug otherwise If I'm not playing music I don't that noise. Does it is the same problem that you are having? How can I fixed this problem?

Thanks.

I just got a Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro to replace my dell oem X-Fi Xtrememusic. Installed 64bit Vista with SP1 after three restarts the sound got real staticie again. It works sometimes then it gets real staticie. Tried changing sample rate and bit depth. It would fix it for a sort time then back to static. Then changing sample rate and bit depth did nothing, still staticie.

In Vista 32bit it works great at 24bit 192000Hz (Studio Quality).

I'm running 8600 GTS SLI with 4GB ram with a XPS 710 590i mobo.

Everything works great in 64bit Vista but the sound. It has to be a driver issue. X-Fi series Driver 2.18.0004 didn't help with the static.

Gabhan, you may have some trouble moving the card, that said you may not. In my now old XPS 420 their were 3 PCI slots, one at the bottom which is not long enough for the X-Fi due to the hard drives, the one above currently has the X-Fi installed. Their is one just above the 16x PCI-e slot but both graphics cards I have had inside them have hidden this from view. So much so I didn't know about it until a Dell technician was replacing the motherboard.

In other news their is now a large space below my desk were a computer once stood. I finally gave up on any hope of Dell fixing the problem and have bought/ordered a 24" iMac. Gonna lose out slightly as I have a 22" monitor that I can no longer use. The XPS 420 should be collected today by Dells courier.