Manuals

Back to Contents Page

Troubleshooting: Sound Blaster X-Fi Getting Started

Problems With Sound • Problems with Sound and CD-ROMs • Insufficient SoundFont Cache • Problems with Digital Audio Devices • Known Issues

Problems With Sound

No sound from the headphones.

Check the following:

• The headphones are connected to the Line Out 1 jack.
• In the Speaker Selection tab of Audio Console, the Headphones option is selected in the Speaker/Headphone Selection box.
  OR
  In the speakers and headphone selection of Entertainment Mode, Game Mode or Audio Creation Mode, the Headphones option is selected.

No audio output when playing digital files such as WAV, MIDI files or AVI clips.

Check the following:

• The speakers' volume control knob, if any, is set at mid-range. Adjust the volume mixer settings in Entertainment Mode or Game Mode, if necessary.
• The powered speakers or external amplifier are connected to the card's Line Out jacks.
• There is no hardware conflict between the card and a peripheral device. See Problems with Digital Audio Devices.
• The speakers and headphone selection in Audio Console, Entertainment Mode, Game Mode or Audio Creation Mode corresponds to your speaker or headphone configuration.

Problems With Sound and CD-ROMs

No audio output when playing audio CDs.

To solve this problem, enable digital CD playback:

1. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel dialog box, double-click the System icon.
3. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Hardware tab.
4. Click the Device Manager button.
5. Double-click the DVD/CD-ROM drives icon. Your computer drives appear.
6. Right-click the disk drive icon. A menu appears.
7. Click Properties.
8. In the Digital CD Playback box of the next dialog box, click the Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device check box to select it.

Insufficient SoundFont Cache

This may occur when a SoundFont-compatible MIDI file is loaded or played while insufficient memory has been allocated to Creative SoundFont Bank Manager.

To have sufficient SoundFont cache memory:

• Remove one or more SoundFont banks from your SoundFont cache. Do the following:
1. Click the Bank button. The Configure Bank panel appears.
2. In the Select Bank box, click a bank location. If the selected bank location contains a bank, the bank will appear in the Bank Stack box.
3. Click the bank you want to remove in the Bank Stack box and click the Remove button.
4. Click the OK button to finish configuring your banks.
• Load smaller SoundFont banks instead; or add more RAM to your system. Do one of the following:
• In the Configure Bank dialog box of Creative SoundFont Bank Manager, select a smaller SoundFont bank, if available, from the Select Bank box.
• Increase the system RAM on your computer. For more details, visit www.soundblaster.com for technical help.

NOTE: The amount of SoundFont cache you can allocate depends on the system RAM available, up to a maximum of 350 MB RAM. Your computer may slow down if the amount of cache used is too high.

Problems with Digital Audio Devices

Intermittent hissing or no sound is heard from my digital speakers.

Make sure you select the sampling rate of the PCM SPDIF output of your Digital Out connector to match the requirements of the receiving device. You may need to select a lower digital output sampling rate. The choices available are 48 kHz and 96 kHz.

To solve this problem:

• In Creative MediaSource Go! Launcher:
  1. Click the Product Settings tab.
  2. Double-click the Audio Console icon.
  3. Click the SPDIF I/O tab.
  4. Click the required sampling rate from the Digital Output (PCM) Sampling Rate list.
• In Entertainment Mode, click the Digital I/O button, and click the required sampling rate from the Digital Output Sampling Rate list.

Popping noises are heard during playback.

The DMA feature may not be enabled for your computer's drives.

To solve this problem:

1. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel dialog box, double-click the System icon.
3. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Hardware tab.
4. Click the Device Manager button.
5. Double-click the ATA/ATAPI IDE Controllers icon. Your IDE channels will appear.
6. Right-click the Primary IDE Channel icon.
7. Click Properties.
8. In the Properties dialog box, click the Advanced Settings tab.
9. Click the DMA if available check box to select it.
10. Click the OK button.

Known Issues

There is a "click" sound when I switch modes.

This may occur when you switch modes or restore the mode settings to their factory default. The sound comes from the relays of your uniquely designed Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card.

Sound is heard from my center analog speaker only.

This may occur when you are playing a 2D MIDI file.

When playing 2D MIDI content without the "pan" parameter or SoundFont-compatible MIDI content with zero panning, Sound Blaster X-Fi may channel sound through your analog center speaker only.

	NOTE: 2D MIDI content is equivalent to the standard MIDI format. Use the 3DMIDI Player application to convert your 2D MIDI file to a 3D MIDI file.
	NOTE: By configuring the MIDI pan parameter of a SoundFont-compatible MIDI content, you can channel sound through other speakers beside the center speaker.