At wits' end over X-Fi Xtreme Audio Issues

[Dick_Sum]

I have searched for answers to this, but basically, I have :

SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio on an ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard with 2 x Geforce 8800 GTXs in SLI, 6Gb RAM and Creative 7.1 speakers.

Both with my original set-up undr XP Pro SP2, and with my new set-up under Vista 64-bit (business) I have had strange problems.

The first and most irritating is when playing some (not all) games when suddenly the sound drops out altogether. Only a restart of the PC restores sounds.

I assume that it's the same problem that causes certain games to crash altogether, causing a total freeze in XP and a task manager shutdown needed on Vista.

I have disabled the on-board audio in the BOIS, but I am lost and cannot find any solutions to this issue anywhere.

Rest assured all my drivers are up to date to the best of my knowledge.

The thing is, the problem comes more often than not, but some days there's no problem, and others there is. The duration I am able to play each time without problems is variable, too.

So, firstly is there a kind soul willing to talk me through this?
And secondly, what info do you need to help me out? Driver versions? Other info? DXdiag output?

I'll reveal all to get me sorted - I've "lived" with this issue for 18 months now... sigh.

An example is GRID. I played GRID on XP Pro - it worked fine but crashed occasionally. On Vista 64, it worked flawlessly for a while, but then began crashing a couple of days ago.

Obviously I must have installed something that upset the balance, but how to trace it....

Looking forward to any hope out there!

Jake

 

[topman]

Dude i am sorry i carnt help you but i have the same thing going on for me in Vista 32 bit and it is madning.
I have,
Asus Maximus Extreme Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Music UAA Vista-Certified 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (PCI)
2 gig of ram and a e8500 at 3.8
i have tride all sorts of driver combinations and i dont no what to do next. but i am glad it is not just me d: if you lern any thing else ples let me no

 

[ragsters]

Try uninstalling your audio drivers using driver sweeper then reinstalling them.

 

[ainarssems]

Get the latest drivers. Creative had lot of issues with drivers, specially on Vista. But it looks like they got they their act together finally.

 

[Dick_Sum]

Followed ragsters advice, cleared out creative (and realtek?) sound drivers with driver sweeper in safe mode after uninstalling them in regular mode, and reinstalled the latest creative drivers.

Now a question:
I avoided installing Alchemy or the CD burning software, labelled as "critical" - are either of these required or useful? E.G. which games are likely to benefit from Alchemy?

Also, realtek: What was that likely to be? the on-board drivers? Required or not? Things seem to work, but I haven't tested the new set-up fully yet.

Thanks again, and I'll let you know if the issues are resolved yet once I've had a chance to test.

Jake

 

[Dick_Sum]

UPDATE: All is good with COD4 and Ventrilo running at the same time. Several hours spent on it with no sound issues so far! Good news! Thanks!!