I am going to BUY an XFI Fatility in just a few minutes and

Question

Just so everyone on this message board knows, I have been reading and reading
till the only way I can determine if this thing works is by getting one. I have
come to grips that if it were to cause me to slick my dri've Ill do it. All I have to
do is remove a Li've 5. Platinum and drivers. That should be know problem for the preinstallation of the XFI.
I want to let anyone on here interested know that there is an ongoing software conflict with Logitech product drivers, Asus update(has never worked properly in my opinion anyway) further more about Asus upate , YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FLASH YOUR MB BIOS WITH AFUDOS FROM A BOOTABLE DISK. COMMAND PROMPT "AFUDOS /i[name of .rom] /o[save .rom]. Also notice I did not put a space inbetween the i and the file name as well as o for the save. I just flashed my Asus P4C800E-Deluxe with a long running Beta Bios of 024.0. Since its been up for months that ususally means for Asus it hasnt gotten any complaints to any severe extent or they would have pulled it. I actually notice an improvment in my system in fact.
So I am going to Pay 300 bills for this card because It should be a great audio card and I love the 5.25 bays.
I already determined that the new Setpoint drivers for the new Logitech Laser Cordless Mice caused a conflict. Also I feel the middle mouse button is not a good solution for gamers with it moving from side to side. I use the middle mouse button to zoom frequently.
Anyway. I bought the MX58 and used the drivers with it. Any version of setpoint drivers above these caused me conflicts and problems which initially pointed to hardware. So my point is that some of the problems everyone is having may be driver related.
Asus update PERIOD is buggy and dangerous. So take my advice never flash with it or use it period.
Secondly any new Logitech driver for whatever product may be the culprit. I am not kidding. I have proven it on my system.
BUT, all of you are probably laughing saying I am going to get screwed. Well I have decided to take the risk. I assure you I will come back and let you know my findings.
So here is where my system stands prior to loading an XFI probably Fatality or the $200 dollar model.
.)Asus P4C800E-Deluxe flashed to the 024.0 Bios. (no problems)
2.)EVGA 6800 Ultra with the newest nvidia certified drivers. Tweaked only with reg keys.
3.)gig Corsair 3200 memory in 4 slots and running correctly in Dual Channel.
4.)Raid 0 with more than enough disk space.
Within the past 2 weeks I did a complete slick of my dri've. I didnt ghost it. I loaded a minimum of ap
ps.
My favorite games only. So my computer is flying as a matter fact.
A good game to test your machine with is "Painkiller". Although the bugs in the game are well know. Crash to the screen. Hang during game play. If the game plays for long periods before any of these things occur than you have a really good game system running if you can play at 280x024 everything maxed in Painkiller that is. Also I play all my games in 280x024.
Furthermore take note of this. I just bought "Sin Emergence" ,loaded it and played it after Steam updated it. I had sound glitching problems in the game which I attribute to my outdated Li've 5.. It happens almost in all games. BUT I went to play F.E.A.R. Today and I got the infamous staticky movie intro visually as will as sound. I could go into video options once in the game and just make sure my res was set to my liking and get out and then it functioned I think properly.
Well I saved my save games and profile and uninstalled Fear. I reloaded it up to patch .4 and what do you know it works perfectly now.
So did Loading "Sin Emergence" cause this? Honestly its the only change I made since playing Fear so I would have to conclude that something did occur software wise to give me this problem.
I will tell you people I will troubleshoot the hell out of the XFI because I do believe that the moderators and such on the forum hear really dont know what is going on. The one thing alarming I did read was that
Creative Labs is prioritizing their work for Vista. That means compatibility in XP is not a high priority for them right now. Therefor it is up to us to get the thing to work.
So Ill be back

Answer 1

Its been 4 days now since I installed the XFI Platinum. I am still notating many things to make sure I get the best performance out of it.
For me fortunately the XFI is working. It did what I hoped it would do and that is take away the glitching and crackling and popping I was getting using an SB Li've 5. Platinum.
For anyone interested, and just to let you know I am a computer services business owner and technician for 9 years and have been working with creative products since the very first Sound Blaster 6 was around. Thats Dos and windows days for those who want the simple.
To the previous poster you are absolutely correct about the processes loading. As a technician you must never think you know everything so using Google is an everyday thing for me. I have already done it in regards to finding out what certain files are that are running at startup and even an outdated service that I dont need running. Since I did what you suggested yesterday before even reading this I will let other people learn from your suggestion and mine for that matter.
But you are wrong in implying that it is okay to flash a bios while in the operating system. I have been using Asus boards for years.
I have a P2B, CUSL, CUSL2, The VIQ P3 board I cant remember the model. Slot though and now I have the P4C800E-Deluxe
I would say I have quite a bit of experience using ASUS motherboards wouldnt you? Actually I have 4 running right now. The VIA board is the only one not in use but still works.
My first experiences with ASUS update were not good as a matter of fact. When I discovered it was attempting to flash my bios while working in the OS I cancelled QUICKLY.
Any technician that is experienced like myself will STRONGLY reccomend a MB Bios be flashed from a clean boot from either a CDrom or Floppy. Yes I know Floppy dri'ves are archaic now but everyone of my computers has one and even the new PCI-E boards I am pretty sure have the option of having a 3.5 floppy dri've. If I had the money to upgrade to an SLI Asus board and I had 2 7900s I would . I assure you. but my system works great.
I believe I already stated its specs.
Anyway my experience with the XFI after 4 days is like this.
I found it necessary to reinstall the game F.E.A.R and when I did the game showed the Creative HD logo which I did not see before the reinstall. Obviously I saved my profile and games. Any gamer knows to do this. So after reinstall I enabled all 3 features in the game , put my saved games back and its great. I mean great. The 3d in my headphones is worth the money alone. I am hearing sounds and music that I never heard before.
So here is my point. I would conclude that in some cases in MAY be necessary to reinstall a game to get the card to funcetion properly. With that being said it MAY be necessary to reinstall your OS as well. For me since I was using the driver that comes with XP and the update from creative I was fortunatelly so far behind I believe that is why I havnt had to reinstall my OS. This is my opinion purely and reinstalling an OS to get the XFI to work properly Is obviously a posibility for many people.
Many computer users do not know about disabling processes at startup. Disabling services.
Most people expect the hardware to work right no matter what condition their computer is in.
So my final thought on the 4th day is that if you can try it and you dont care, try reinstalling XP if thats your OS. I mean clean install. Save everything you need to save.
BUT DO NOT DO THIS WITH THE XFI IN THE SYSTEM. After the OS is loaded and you have connectivity to the net , drivers for your video card , then open your box up and put the card in and try installing it the way it says.
That seriously might get the card to work for many poeple. Almost all games have saved game folders that you can save. Most every serious PC user that would buy this card would also have their games on another partition or dri've itself.
So here are the test games I have used so far.
Doom 3
Painkiller
FEAR
I have many more games to test it with like Half Life 2, NFSMW, etc.
So Ill come back and tell you what I found.
Oh I have removed all unnessary processes I have been able to determine from Creative now and the XFI is running great. The Volume Panel doesnt seem to bog my system down. I mean I am playing FEAR at 280x024 with very good frame rates. I have EVGA 6800 Ultra OCed to 433Mhz Core Clock. I also OCed my P4 3.2 to 3.36
I hope every one gets theirs to work but I have to suggest that the XFI may not be so messed up as is beeing suggested by many. I almost didnt buy it because I read so many potential problems. I was most conserned about Service Pack 2. Incidentely I am still running Service Pack and the XFIs apps all loaded and are functioning properly. No errors.