XPS 730 X-fi Sound Card Issues

This is worth a try - as a last alternative to ripping out your Xfi card...

I have been using this for nearly two weeks without a screech / crackle / pop to be heard. Not saying this is a 100% solution - only that it seems to be working for me at the moment..and if the alternative is tear out the card -what have you got to loose?

http://www.youp-pax.org/viewthread.php?tid=615&extra=page%3D1

Thanks for the replies both of you. I'll give those drivers a shot if I can't find any from a user on here who seems to have no issues with their 730 card after reinstalling.

Hopefully a few more people chip in

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@atbglenn wrote:
I had major problems with my X-Fi as well. I removed the X-Fi after trying different drivers that didn't correct the loud shriek of death I was getting. I'm now using the Realtek onboard sound chip with great results. I will never use another Creative product as long as I live. Total garbage!

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You will notice that the soundcard mentioned is the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card

You see the little D in there, it means that Dell messed up the card.

I got a Dell version of my Audigy soundcard and they removed several features from it and still called it an Audigy to fool customers.

I have seen posts that people buy a Retail version of the X-Fi and the problems disappear.

Dell tries to save a few pennies and invent their Dell versions of sound cards that cause these problems.

My XPS 730 came with a an X-FI xtremeGamer soundcard, and I believe Dell added to the retail verison instead of take away from it. The xtremeGamer card on Creative website are low profile cards with a flex jack for digital audio etc... The Dell Version is a full height card with dedicatedl digital audio ports (just like the retail xtremeMusic card.) I believe most people look a the pictures on the CreativeWebsite and assume that they have the xtremeMusic card because it looks like the card in the XPS 730 when they do in fact have an xtremeGamer card.

Thanks for the insight both of you. Yeah i found a couple of topis where Chris had linked a pic three cards stacked on top of each other http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dellxficardske5.jpg

and indeed I do have the bottom one. The troubling thing is my shipped list and purchase bill both say the xtreme music. Even when i looked on the site as lugo pointed out the one i actually have has a totally different picture. This is really starting to make me mad.

Though i've probably tried about every driver on that site that seemed sensible, I now feel like i should go back and try the gamer ones since it looks like was using the extrememusic ones. I disabled the card today and switch the cable to the front panel to the motherboard and am now running on the onboard sound.

The original problems i was experiencing seemed to be gone or I thought they were. No more noise and no more crashing during my games. However tonight during downloading and watch an internet show, i got the blue screen of death as well as locking up in a Guildwars.

I am very competent when i comes to computers but this all just seems quite ridiculous. I wonder what a average user would do to try to fix these problems.

I also have to one on the bottom. It was sold as the XtremeGamer as well. It now sits in a drawer never to be used again. I can't even sell it without feeling guilty. What a bummer :(

After using the onboard sound for the weekend, I am still perplexed. Originally, it was working great. Played a whole day of games without any concern. No noise, no crackly noise when on teamspeak....none of that. However when playing company of heroes online with teamspeak today, i crashed three times in a row. What drivers are you using for the onboard sound? (the ones from dell support?)

Called up XPS Support tonight and when through alot of stuff with a patient support woman. After everything she suggested that running some games in SLI Mode is causing a confliction with the sound. I guess maybe thats something to prove wrong in the short term as i will not use just a single card when i order two for SLI.

Reabled the X-fi and trying the beta drivers from the creative site for the XtremeGamer. Thanks for the comments and keep the suggestions coming.

alky27,

First off, I did not disable the x-fi, I physically removed it from my system. When I enabled the onboard sound, Vista automatically installed the drivers for it. I did not use Dell drivers. Since I only play music on my computer, and a few classic arcade games, I'm having no problems at all with it. One other thing, I only have one video card in my system if that is any help. 

atbglenn - Thanks for the details. Tonight i tried moving it to the other slot on my motherboard and now im totally exhausted from spending half the day and staying up till now working on it. We'll see today if i run into any problems with it. As for letting windows install drivers...I'm not too sure about that. I Game heavily and really want the performance that this computer should offer. As for the one video card, I have read that SLI has created some problems with 4gb of ram etc but I'm not sure if thats the case with us.

Thanks for the driver list suggestion to. I'll definitely download it to have it on hand.

The forum post "xps 730 Machine Freezing" seems to be almost exactly what im talking about...

Alky27, you did not mention what Video Card(s) you have. I have a 9800Gx2 on mine and i expereince the crackle and pop when playing Crysis is SLI mode and when scrolling webpages and playing music at the same time in SLI mode. I did not experience the sound issues when I was not using SLI Mode, I use 2 monitors so I have a good reason not to use SLI except when gaming.

The 1.0.4 Dell Bios fixed the crackle and pop during gaming in SLI mode. it also seems to have resolved the isues for other people on this forum.