Crackling & Distortion w/ PCI-e SB X-Fi Titanium

Hi guys,

I wonder if anyone can offer any constructive advice. When I first built my system, I figured since I was only going to use two speakers I might as well not go overboard on a soundcard - but I wanted a distinct audio device so I could run WoW game sound through my speakers and a voice chat client over a headset separately. I bought a Creative SB Audigy.

I had trouble with terrible crackling and distortion in games like Crysis, and even some in WoW if there happened to be music playing. Being a hardware noob, I just figured maybe I needed a better soundcard with better hardware processing. I ordered a PCI-e SB X-Fi Titanium.

The problem was worse with the new card. I was getting the crackling and popping even in Internet Explorer; if I happened to have music playing, there'd be crackling and popping when I scroll up or down, or as each graphic file renders. I worked with Creative's support and eVGA's frustrating support (maker of my mobo) to try and resolve the issues. Eventually I flashed the motherobard's BIOS with an update, and that helped a little bit - now I don't get the crackling in my browser, and it's less pronounced in some games. Still terrible in Crysis, though, and I imagine it'll be the same in anything else that taxes the system.

Creative is more or less at a loss. They note that even though I've uninstalled everything, disabled onboard audio, and done a clean install of the new card, the system still shows it as "WDM", according to them. I'm damned if I can find out what they mean by that.

Also, they note that the soundcard shares an IRQ with the graphics card. This is true; the boot sequence shows multiple devices using IRQ 11 (including the soundcard and graphics card). If I look in Vista's device manager, I see multiple devices sharing IRQ 16 (including the soundcard and graphics card).

eVGA's stooges haven't been much help in helping me resolve the IRQ conflict. They told me to set IRQ assignment to manual in the BIOS, which I did - but it doesn't let me assign anything, only reserve an IRQ (and not even for a specific device).

Microsoft's support assures me that I can't assign IRQs in Vista SP1, so I seem to have invested in a pair of paperweights from Creative (the old Audigy and the new X-Fi Titanium PCI-e).

Has anyone else found a good solution for crackling and popping with a Creative SB X-Fi Titanium PCI-e on an nForce mobo with a GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card? My system specs are in my profile, and are current (except for the new sound card).

I appreciate any advice you guys can offer, thanks.