X-Fi Sound, Vista Compatibility

[Skuzzy]

For Vista;

You need to set the "Control Panel" to classic view.

Control Panel->Adminstrative Tools->Computer Management

Under "View", select "Resources by type", then expand "Interrupt Request" list.  Find the sound card, check its IRQ and see if any other devices are using the same IRQ.

[FLS]

If it was an IRQ conflict wouldn't it have occurred earlier?

--)-FLS----

[TheRapier]

Hi Skuzzy!

I check there and it shows no conflicts and that the device is working properly

Hi FLS!

Thanks!

[Skuzzy]

If it was an IRQ conflict wouldn't it have occurred earlier?

--)-FLS----

Not neccessarily.  It depends on what it was sharing an IRQ with, if anything.

Hi Skuzzy!

I check there and it shows no conflicts and that the device is working properly

Hi FLS!

Thanks!

Uhmmm....that list I pointed you at does not tell you the device is working properly.  It is a list of the IRQ's being used by the devices in the computer, if you did exactly what I said.

Windows is happy to allow devices to share IRQ's, but sound cards do not share IRQ's well at all.

[FLS]

Since you don't have a MB manual listing shared IRQs you could just try any other available slots to see if that helps.

--)-FLS-----

[TheRapier]

Do I need to go through every device and check the IRQ address?

That would take a while .

There are no exclamation points or indications of a problem in the list. I get that info when I double click on the device and it opens the driver dialog.

FLS, I didn't mention on this go around I changed the slot that the card sat in (mostly because it was right up against the vid card fan). So that changed the slot, same thing happened.

Thanks!

[Skuzzy]

Oops, I left a step out.

=============
For Vista;

You need to set the "Control Panel" to classic view.

Control Panel->Adminstrative Tools->Computer Management.

Select "Device Manager"  <----left this out.

Then under "View", select "Resources by type", then expand "Interrupt Request" list.  Find the sound card, check its IRQ and see if any other devices are using the same IRQ.

[TheRapier]

I figured that bit out .

The info comes from that list.

BTW, I found that both of the "High Definition Audio Controllers" installed by Vista sit on the same IRQ but I'm assuming that is because they are sound devices running through the card?

The rest of the list is too long to go through before I leave for work.

Thanks!

[Chalenge]

Which manufacturer produced your motherboard? You may have already said or it may be in the DXDIAG report but I dont know where to find it. I know from first hand experience that the ASUS P5NE-SLI and P5Q3 motherboards are unstable when running with full DIMM sockets and dual graphics cards (SLI for the P5NE and Crossfire for the P5Q3) in combination with a Creative X-Fi card especially. In fact the P5NE is only slightly more stable with a b-Enspirer card when all DIMM and PCI-e slots are populated and the reason is a combination of IRQ conflicts and power stability of the MB itself. With these two MBs it doesnt matter which OS you use.

I use Vista 64 with an eVGA 780i SLI MB with 8800 GTs in SLI and the bGears b-Enspirer and 8 GB of memory on my AH machine and its absolutely stable. In fact I bought all the 780s newegg had left. Last time I checked you could still find this MB on Amazon. I found the Ati cards were not as well suited for flight sims as Nvidia GeForce although neither one of them is a perfect fit for me ideally.

[TheRapier]

I'm not a computer builder so mine is an off the shelf Dell 630 XPS. God knows what kind of of motherboard is in there . Hopefully they did some testing around stability.

I got the ATI cards because they would support a three screen setup.

Thanks!

[Chalenge]

You most likely have a 650i motherboard which should be very stable and capable of using either Ati or Nvidia cards. Are you sure you saw a window in the Computer Management applet like this and that your sound card was not on the same IRQ as your video cards? In my example the bGears shows up as 'C-Media Oxygen HD Audio Device' and is on IRQ 17 while the video cards 'NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT' are on IRQ 16.



The faster way to get to the applet is to right click on Computer from the desktop or Start Menu and select Manage.

[TheRapier]

Hi Chalenge!

Thanks for the visual!

That is the exact screen I saw.

In the place of your Oxygen Audio card I have Creative Sound Blaster. What I had that you don't is the two "High Definition Audio Devices" which I have disabled (tried them enabled too, no change. Also tried to uninstall them but Windows sticks them back in as fast, literally, as you can take them out).

I checked the IRQs. They are the same for the Creative and Audio Devices and all of these are different from the Video Cards (ATI).

Thanks!

[Chalenge]

Are you absolutely sure you have onboard audio defeated (disabled) in your BIOS?

[TheRapier]

Just to close this thread out with the end of the story, in case anyone ever has the same problem.

I got a new sound card thinking that could be the problem (Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional, best card that was available locally). Problem continued. 

I was losing the sound anywhere from every 5 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I couldn’t even get the plane off the ground and it would quit. My vox still worked (meaning the sound card was functioning) but all the game sounds were kaput. As soon as I left the game, sound was working in Vista. Restart the game, go 5 minutes and silence. I can’t count the number of times I crashed because I couldn’t hear the buffet or wind sounds going up to compressibility.

I’d get the odd pops and pings and the sound would drop and either just quit or come back. I dropped out for about 45 minutes to let the computer cool, following a theory that somehow the card was over heating. I was just about ready to do a OS reinstall when I looked again at a piece of software that Creative makes called Alchemy. Creative ALchemy is supposed to allow you to run your favorite DirectSound3D games on Windows Vista with full hardware accelerated 3D Audio and EAX support.

I had tried it on the original sound card but it wouldn’t recognize the path to AH. On a whim, with the thought that this was a new card running on a new, different driver, I tried it again and this time it took. I popped back in to AH and flew for four hours and no quitting.

What is weird is, I’ve been using this machine for 7 months WITHOUT this piece of interim software and it has worked fine. Why it works now (or then) is a mystery, but if it works, it works.

Thanks for all the help and advice folks!

[Chalenge]

My understanding is that X-Fi cards do not use and cannot benefit from DirectSound or DirectSound 3D and are therefore unaffected by Alchemy. However if you ever get away from brand 'C' you might also see if OpenAL helps at all.

I still use the b-Enspirer but my favorite card is the HT Omega Striker 7.1 for its widerange of compatibility and stability. It does not have the bloat of brand 'C' nor the range of b-Enspirer but at 41 and 48 Khz you would would have to spend more than $200 (currently) to beat it.