[Sound Blaster ZX]Control Panel takes 6 MINUTES to load and is nearly unusable?!

Question

All,
Yesterday I took the plunge and picked up a Sound Blaster ZX to replace my old Audigy Platinum. Unfortunately I've been met with a series of problems that leave me with a bad taste in my mouth about my purchase.
The driver install seemed to go well though it was a little disconcerting when the 'Check for update' button in the auto update tool that runs right after install was grayed out. I noticed that I was not getting sound out of the 5.1 analog inputs that I had connected up to my Logitech Z680 speaker system. So I checked the system tray and there was a new SB icon there, that was clearly a utility to get to the configuration. Knowing this was probably the right place to start fiddling with the settings, I clicked it. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Strange I thought, so I checked the Windows task manager and located the Sound Blaster control panel in the list of running processes. I waited another minute or so and still nothing was displaying. So I killed the process in task manager, located the shortcut to the SB ZX control panel in the start menu and launched it. Again with the waiting. I immediately took to google and started researching a potential problem with this card.
As I was searching and had forgotten that I had launched the Control Panel, it suddenly showed up on my screen. Wow I thought, that took a while to load. I then proceeded to try to navigate the various areas of the Control Panel application. I was immediately concerned when I noticed that the app was not responsive and appeared to be frozen. I decided to patiently wait to see if it would wake up. Fortunately it did, though only after waiting for several minutes. I then attempted to close the Control Panel app, which it did after several more minutes of waiting.
I thought maybe there was some anomalous process running so I decided to try the Control Panel from a fresh boot. After my machine had started up, I clicked the SB icon in the system tray again, only this time I was going to time it. I recorded that it took 6 FULL MINUTES from the time I clicked the icon until the application displayed on my screen. Further, the lag of switching between the various areas of the application was as high as 3-4 minutes. In essence this software is completely unusable.
I decided to try the TOSLINK connections between my speaker system and the soundcard to see if it would respond better. I set the mixer settings(via the built in Windows mixer) and I could get it to produce sound albiet only in two channel stereo. Progress, or so I thought. So I switched back to the analog connections and there was no difference in the response of the control panel. I had found some instances where an onboard or video card based HDMI audio driver might interfere with the card. I had long since disabled the on board sound of my Asus P5Q Pro motherboard via the BIOS so there were no drivers hanging around from it. I then took a look at the device manager and disabled the ATI High Defintion Audio device that was likely part of my SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 video card. This had no effect, I was still getting no sound from my speakers and the interface is abysmally lagged.
I then took the following steps to no avail:
Uninstall all Soundblaster ZX drivers and software
Restart machine
Install the updated Soundblaster ZX software from the Creative Support site: http://support.creative.com/Products...T=CategoryID:1
Nothing I have tried has resolved the issue with the virtually unusable lag that occurs when trying to run the Control Panel and/or configure the Soundblaster ZX or the amount of time it takes to start up.
Anyone experienced this and know of a fix or a remedy? I really want to enjoy this sound card.
**UPDATE**
I just wanted to post up and say that I solved this issue by first uninstalling all drivers for both the SB ZX and my Radeon graphics card. I then used Driver Fusion(http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion) to perform a registry/file cleanup on all files associated with AMD graphics cards and Creative sound cards. Then I installed the drivers & software for the SB ZX from the CD that came in the box. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the software was responsive and the hardware was fully functioning. I then installed the software for my Radeon card however this time, I selected a custom install and chose NOT to install the HDMI audio driver. I don't know if this was key or not but at any rate, after the graphics card drivers and software was installed I am happy to report that the SB ZX software remained responsive and fully functioning.
I then updated the SB ZX software to the version linked above(1.0.22) from the version that ships on the CD - 1.0.13 and strangely the Cinematic tab disappeared from the Pro Studio control panel. Some research revealed that this tab is dependent on the Creative Labs Extras which seemed to have gotten nuked during the update. I was able to bring back the Cinematic tab by re-installing the extras from the CD, however it only installed the Dolby Digital Live component. DTS connect is still missing. I am going to do a little more research to see what I can do to get it back.
Hope this helps someone who runs into this same predicament.

Answer 1

Any news about the SoundBlaster Zx Linux drivers? Currently, there's no way to get even the most basic sound of it on Linux.