Experiencing a lot of problems with my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro

[Dattera]

Hello everybody,

My name is Daniel and I bought a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB sound card somewhere in March, and since, I have only been experiencing problems with it and I would love to solve them. But in order to do that I need help since I'm not the best with computers.
I have already tried a lot of things in order for it to work properly, but first I'm going to list every problem I have. (I'm Dutch and have installed the Dutch software, so maybe some things are translated differently that it would be in the English software.)

1. It never plays 5.1 sound, even though there are 5.1 speakers (Logitech Z506) plugged in, it always plays 2.1.
2. I can hear a lot of pops and cracks through whatever I'm playing. (Usually music or videos)
3. Creative Entertainment-console doesn't work (software that comes with the drivers). It gives this error message (translated from Dutch): No supported audio devices have been found. Close the software. Press OK to stop the software now. I also think I now why I have this problem, I think it's because, in the driver properties of the device, it says that the drivers are from Microsoft, instead of Creative.
4. I have sort of the same problem with the Creative settings for sound. It gives this error messag (translated from Dutch): The audio device supported by this software, has not been found. The application will exit. (I think it's because of the same reason as problem 3).
5. Some sounds are played through my laptop speakers instead of the 5.1 speakers I have (these sounds are usually system sounds).
6. The volume dial on the card doesn't work.

I don't think I have any other problems with it, but if one of them gets solved, any other problem with it will most likely be solved too.
Also, because I'm using a laptop, I unplug the sound card quite often to use my laptop somewhere else, is this bad?

Okay, now I will list all of my hardware/software (if that is necessary):

Laptop: HP Pavilion g6-1250sd
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro (External)
Speakers: Logitech Z506 (5.1)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2340M @ 2.40 GHz
RAM: 6GB in total
- 4GB SODIMM Samsung 1333MHz
- 2GB SODIMM Micron Technology 1333MHz
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6470M
HDD: Hitachi HTS547564A9E384 (575.78GB)

And it tells me I have 3 audio devices:
Audio Device 1: Intel Display Audio
Audio Device 2: USB-audio device
Audio Device 3: IDT High Definition Audio CODEC

If you need any other information please ask me!
I would love to finally get my sound card properly working.
Thank you for helping/even reading this.


Greetings,

Daniel

 

[PP Mguire]

Your problem is drivers. USB-Audio Device will be your 5.1, and it's the reason your software doesn't recognize the sound card nor does 5.1 playback work. You need to go to the Creative website and install the latest drivers for your card.

 

[Dattera]

Thanks for the reply!
But I have installed and re-installed the latest drivers ( first from the cd, then updating them) multiple times before posting and it still didn't work.
I will try it again and see what happens

 

[PP Mguire]

Uninstall and use Driver Sweeper to rid your machine of the CD drivers and download only the update package from Creative's site. 100% guarantee you that with it having a name like that in device manager your hardware isn't full initialized.

 

[Yevrag35]

You could try installing the drivers manually like this:
Download this extracted form of the exe file that you downloaded from their website.
http://www.mediafire.com/?r9j9qudhqpermvm
Next, unzip it so you have an uncompressed folder.
Then, go to your device manager, and find the usb card.
Start=>Right-click "Computer"=>Manage=>left column:click "device manager"

I would put money on it being under the "sound, video, and game controllers" collection. Right-click the one you want, and choose "update driver software".

In the next box, choose "Browse my computer for driver software". Then click on the lower option, "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".
Next, it should show what type of device it is, but now you want to click the button "Have Disk". In the next "install from disk" window, click "Browse", and then browse to where you downloaded the extracted driver folder. Once inside, go to Drivers=>Driver=>WinVista=>Bin.

Once in that folder, there will be a file called "SB1095.inf", so choose it, then click OK. It then should recognize the file as part of the Sound Blaster Driver.
Click next and let it install.

Obviously, some things will different because of translation, but you should get the gist of where to go.