Creative labs SUCKS!!!

[Ar-Pharazon]

I could use some input on sound cards OTHER THAN Creative.
Also, I believe Auzentech uses Creative drivers & software, which is the biggest part of the problem with these idiots, so that one is not an option.

I'm running XPx64 (though I had problems with regular XP before I upgraded)

My X-Fi Fatal1ty (with Logitech 5.1 surround system)started having new problems recently. The rear speakers stopped working. I switched the green & black cables in the jacks and then the rear speakers worked, but the front ones no longer did. Long story short...something wrong with the card iteself.

But, just to make sure, I swapped the sound card with my USB card which is also a PCI-E. At first the damn computer wouldn't even boot up. Nothing, not even the BIOS screen. After some more fiddling, that stopped and I got booted back up. No change, still no rear speaker sound.

So again, just to be sure, I decided to reinstall the drivers/software. I did the usual clean boot, uninstalled using the original driver disk, made sure everything was uninstalled via Control Panel, deleted all Creative stuff from everywhere and so on. Also uninstalled the hardware from Device Manager.

Did the reinstall, then the MediaSource part won't install. It keeps hanging up on the MediaSource Go portion. A few more uninstalls and reinstalls, then it claims there's no device installed, even though the sound is working. Got that fixed with an updated Console Launcher install file from the website.

Still haven't tried the MediaSource thing again, since I've been at this all goddamn night and am sick of dealing with this BS. Creative is absolutely THE FUCKING WORST CRAP EVER. Every forum I look at (including their own) regarding these idiots is filled with complaints about their drivers & "support" (or lack thereof).

Last night wouldn't have even been so bad if every other time I've needed to reinstall it hadn't taken several tries to get it to work right.

The only thing I like about this particular setup is the I/O bay that sits in one of my front bays and has a whole range of jacks. I really like the RCA jacks which allow me to plug in a turntable to rip my records.

Anybody use one of the other sound cards? Have any problems with them? Any of them have some kind of front bay like mine?

 

[USS KG5]

I've had an X-Fi card for years, never had any problems.

Did have a problem years ago when upgraded a PC from 98 to XP and the Live 5.1 card I had at the time went tits up on me, took ages to fix in the end turned out I had to update my mobo's BIOS to run XP - after that it worked perfectly.

Maybe you need some kind of similar upgrades with Vista, after all driver problems with Vista are hardly rare.

Edit: Just noticed you said you were running XP64, I'm sure I read there are significant driver issues with a lot of Creative drivers for XP64 which have never been fixed because of Vista coming out??

 

[Venardhi]

Creative makes the best consumer sound cards price/performance-wise, but I have had various problems with them over the years. My Audigy is still running decently after 5 years, but the mic port occasionally doesn't work so I have to use the onboard one if I want to use voice for anything when that happens. There are duds in any hardware line, but out of all the creative cards I've encountered over the years, I don't think I've ever seen one that broke for reasons other than catastrophic hardware damage or user error. Might be you just got lucky.

How old is the card? It might still be under warranty.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

The card is about 15 months old, so not sure if it's warrantied. They should be emailing me back on Monday.
And really, it's the software & drivers they suck at. Hardware-wise, probably somewhat rare to have something go wrong, but it does. 95% of the complaints I've seen, and there are a lot, are about the drivers and to a lesser extent, the other software.
Then, there's the "support", which has been pretty poor at best. They stick to the "reinstall" mantra, which, if the software worked better, there wouldn't be the need for constant reinstalls.

 

[Johnny Rico]

Well, I'm running Vista-32 with a X-Fi card and the only problem I have is the audio resource sharing feature, when it downgrades quality when you're runnng multiple audio streams at the same time.

Whenever I access certain websites or certain pages within that website, my sound card "static outs", meaning that I get this loud skreetching noise and then it blanks out. No sound. Then after a few minutes I get a click and the sound comes back, but my right front channel is dead. The only way to restore it is a reboot. At first when this happened I thought it was my speakers acting up again like they did with my old computer. I did the wire swap thing like the OP did and got my front right speaker working again, but the right rear speaker was dead. So...finally I slept on it and the next day it was working just fine again, so that's when I figured out that it was the reboot the fixed it.

Most of the time, this "static out" thing only occurs after I have had my Windows Media Player open. For some reason, it seems the sytem won't let go of those resources after I close it.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

I have to agree. I finally got sick of the crackling on my audigy 2 card so I pulled it out and switched to the onboard audio on my motherboard. Not great, but at least it doesn't force me to install bloatware and the speakers don't crackle 24/7. Also nice how they just stopped supporting the audio front panel that came with the card so I can't use it's auxillary firewirem remote control and optical ports. Onboard audio has caught up to the point that I don't think I'm going to bother buying another soundcard for any future system.

 

[Iasius]

I had a Soundblaster Pro, SB 16, SB AWE 32, and SB Live 5.1 over time. But since I'm nowadays limited as regards PCI slots, I use onboard sound (Realtek) and I don't see the point right now in buying a soundcard for myself.
My next purchase would be a speaker system with a digital input and in any case, the sound "card" will be even less important I think.

(I also remember having problems with CL drivers at first when I switched to Win2K.)

 

[Herbert1]

My Audigy 2 Platinum started making popping sounds. Just fed up with them. I have never liked their products and was trying to stay away from them.

Anyone have success with Turtle Beach sound cards? How is the Riviera or the Montego?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I have to agree. I finally got sick of the crackling on my audigy 2 card so I pulled it out and switched to the onboard audio on my motherboard. Not great, but at least it doesn't force me to install bloatware and the speakers don't crackle 24/7. Also nice how they just stopped supporting the audio front panel that came with the card so I can't use it's auxillary firewirem remote control and optical ports. Onboard audio has caught up to the point that I don't think I'm going to bother buying another soundcard for any future system.

It might be the same as what I was saying. The updated drivers caused my remote to all but stop working. The 4 wheels on the remote would not work until I uninstalled (and I mean completely uninstalled) and reinstalled the driver & software from the original disk.
With this last time's troubles, I had to go so far as to delete ALL references to "Creative" from my registry, every damn one, before the reinstall worked.
Then I used Control Panel to remove the AutoUpdate, just to make sure it didn't change anything on me.

I know all software install & uninstalls have some sloppiness, I used to run Norton utilities after every single installation, and usually came up with stuff like missing dll's (Adobe is good for that one), but I have never had anywhere near the trouble as I've had with Creative drivers & software. And that's what my rant/bitch is about, in addition to their overall support, or lack thereof.

BTW, Capt. Vulcan, do you have a 5.1 speaker setup that you're using with the onboard audio? I have an Intel mobo, I wonder if there is a driver needed for this and how it would sound. Diablo 2 is the only "real" game I have on the machine, I can't keep up with all the new games anymore.
In fact, I have 1 more jack (blue) on the mobo than I do on the sound card, but nowhere near the number of inputs.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

I only have a 4.1 setup, but it works fine. The only problem I had was chasing down the proper HD audio drivers on the net. Also I connected the wrong cables to the motherboard the first time for front panel audio and they wires caught on fire, luckily there was another set meant for some azalia audio something or other that worked just fine. That's what happens when the terminology in the case manual doesn't match up with the verbage in the motherboard manual.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I just got home and downloaded the driver/control panel from Intel. Seems to work just fine. Played a couple of music videos, they sounded great. It's nice to have the surround back again too.
I wonder if I could keep the onboard audio but still use the Creative I/O bay for input only.

 

[Meredith]

I've heard Vista has issues with a lot of sound cards is this true?

 

[darkshadow0001]

Wow, the last sound card I used by Creative Labs was the original SoundBlaster 16. Didn't think they were still doing that, I just use whatever comes with my PC.

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

On the good side, hasn't Creative finally released some of their driver source code so people can actually make a better driver instead of dealing with their POS code anymore?

At least, I seem to remember reading about it...

Here we go...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=creative_xfi_gift&num=1

 

[Mr. B]

Asus makes some sounds cards worth a look such as the Xonar D2. I have an X-Fi Xtremegamer card myself so I couldn't comment on it from personal experience. I like their motherboards though.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

On the good side, hasn't Creative finally released some of their driver source code so people can actually make a better driver instead of dealing with their POS code anymore?

At least, I seem to remember reading about it...

Here we go...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=creative_xfi_gift&num=1

I was aware Creative had allowed 3rd parties (Auzentech) to use the X-Fi chipset, but hadn't heard of this.
That story seems to talk about Linux drivers though.