X-Fi Screech of Death

I SOLVED IT

It has been 4 years of dealing with the dell oem version of the x-fi (though not sure that was cause of all my x-fi related bsod).  Never could take up new driver updates (even dell's).  Perhaps some random ones stuck once in a while.

HERE IS solution to X-FI driver blue screen of death, reinstall uninstall, no detection, no audio device,  no switching in creative console launcher

You can use the latest driver from creative even on dell branded x-fi by

1) downloading the driver update package from creative

2) download and install peazip

3) extract the driver package into a directory (say on desktop)

4) go to control panel / system / device / sound / x-fi / driver

5) click uninstall driver

6) reboot

7) XP will try to autodetect driver, mine looks for the cd and some dll on that cd

8) ignore the pop up window, close it down

9) go to control panel / add hardware

10) click on multmedia device (or whatever autodetect calls it)

11) the first pass will be same as the bubble (step 7) click cancel to get to next mode of driver install

12) see compatible creative x-fi highlighted in a dialogue box, then click have disk

13) it should be looking for a .ini file now.  Go to the extracted new driver install files you put on desktop

14) go to drivers / sbxf / wdw you will see an .ini (may be different than original one looking for), click that and install

15) it will then say it is looking for appsetup.  This is first folder of your extracted files of the new driver

16) reboot and it works with drivers not from 2005 but from 2009!

16) dell: send me a new computer if I helped you out!  You know i did, this x-fi fiasco has been royal PIA

Part 2: Where is the taskbar icon for the creative console launcher and volpanel after I did a complete reinstall with new drivers / applications?

1) download the console launcher 60.29

2) download and install peazip

3) extract the install package for the 60.29 version

4) volpanel is a folder than has a setup file that installs the missing icon and taskbar functions.

Note: I did a complete uninstall of the creative drivers and software followed by registry cleaners to remove all traces.  Then I installed the creative driver package as they intended and it would not find the x-fi card.  No errors, but no sound either.  Uninstall and put in cd from dell, nothing.  ETC, nothing worked.  This is the classic issues of the x-fi in the forums.  So I hope you find my approach useful!

The last update hasn't caused a screech or sqwualk hardly at all, but had created yet another issue. Playing MP3 & M4A files, and I open up Firefox to search for stuff; when Firefox is gathering items to display the page - stuttering, almost at times to totlal scrunching music into horrible sounds, and other audible issues occurs. I hate having to reboot every few hours to get past this messy audio.

I have been playing music in the background while playing EverQuest II and heard clips, pops, and music scrunching in the background. This soundcard is junk anymore. Was good the first three quarters of a year, now feal like it's falling apart.

Swapping PCI slots (there's only 2!) did not help.

Also get WDM failure notices in Vista x64 a lot, usually right after reboot while the Nvidia drivers are loading - which in itself is taking a heck of a lot time (upwards of 10 minutes).

Thanks, i'll give it a try.

I'm curious to see if this works. :emotion-21:

I followed the step by step instructions and it seemed to work fine.  I did not go to the extreme of cleaning the registry.  It got rid of the popping and crackling.  However, I'm a huge gamer and now I have another problem, the mic on my headset doesn't work.  Do you have the same problem?

Tars your system doesn't work for me.

I've tried it with my X-Fi elite pro pci, X-Fi Xtreme Music oem pci and I bought today a X-Fi titanium PCI-E guess what  BSOD. 

I've used latest creative drivers, windows driver, beta drivers even daniel k's X-Gi Series Support Pack 2.0

Nothing is working. When I run a game it BSOD on saved game load up, or During the game session. Its totally random.

I'm returning the X-Fi titanium tomorrow.

I'm fed up with creative products. 

I don't care anymore who blames who.. Creative X-Fi issue vs Nvidia nForce boards compatibility..

In this situation dell screwed up with there build.

Hi,

No problem on my mic (use it for skype).  On my card, it is a multipurpose port I seem to recall.  I am not sure if you set this or it is an autodetect.  Are you suppose to say if it is a line in or mic? 

Yes, check the panel and select mic.  Then see if you need the mic boost (+20db).  It probably tripped and people can't hear you b/c it is clicked off.  On entertainment mode, it is the plus sign above the volume.  Click it and make the arrow show up.  Probably similar in game mode

Tars

Hi,

That was my experience as well.  I would try different drivers and then get BSOD at some point during boot.  I would have to do the driver roll-back to get it too work again.  The key is when I discovered that it was not the version of the driver but how it was getting installed.  If I had version B working, went to C Or D or back to A, and then reinstalled B using the install B setup (or by pointing the installer to the B files on the cdrom), it no longer worked.  But I knew that B worked because I had it working previously w/o bsod.  So once I realized that, I thought that perhaps it is not a driver version issue but how it is installed.  For whatever reason, the install package doesn't seem to work correctly.

I think my process was in essence

1) uninstall driver through control panel

2) reboot

3) bypass any autoinstall/autodetect process looking for dll file

4) in add hardware after skipping the autodetect option, go to compabile mode and click have disk, find the ini and you are set.  Install process should be looking for the ini file, not the dll file.  Of course, you have to open up the compressed driver files to point to the ini file. I tried to describe what I did the best I could at the time and it is a little fuzzy now. 

Still get crackling & popping when playing music and surfing the internet.

And while using programs, windows explorer, or not doing anything I get the voices, screeches, blups, R2DR in a Baggy sounds; it's all random. Every new update or idea may work for a day or two, then it's back to it's usual annoying self again. Like the card has a mind of it's own!

Really wished someone at Dell would give me a replacement soundcard. Those stupid technicians won't do anything unless the archaic Dell DOS software finds an error code. These people need serious troubleshooting skills... they couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag if they didn't have an error code.

Still having issues with music playback ans viewing web pages. Seems while the web pages are loading, the soundcard playback get distorted and even in heavy page download will totally makes the strangest of noises. Why would pages being downloaded affect the soundcard? Got 2 cores, plenty of memory, yet there is disruptions in playback only when view web pages while playing back in Zune, iTunes, VLC, or even WMP11.

I usually reboot the machine and turn it off for 20 seconds when it gets bad.

Also been noticing that the Nvidia motherboard/network drivers are taking a rather long time to load after reboots. Since the lame DOS-like Dell Diagnostics doesn't find any errors, Dell's technicians will just keep asking the same question over and over. I think they want to irritate their customer into hanging up so they can just collect their paycheck - and can't afford the premium US service either (would hate to get the same treatment). So much for having a complete care package and being sluffed off by the so-called support team.

I found a possible fix.

This knowledge may or may not fix X-Fi verses nForce mobo systems

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252088-30-solution-790i-freezes

I tried it and so far its ok... But i haven't tested it long enough.. But I feel I should share it maybe it will help some people here.

Update...

Nope still get BSOD...   Hey dell are you going to ever answer for this?  Or is mute the only language you can speak?

WH