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Can't Hear Jack

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:45:04 -0600

I finally took the plunge and built my own rig. Everything worked fine until I plugged my Boston Acoustic Digital BA735 speakers into my EVGA 680i motherboard’s onboard outputs: Nothing happened. I received no sound at all. I tried the same speakers with a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer card and got the same result: zilch. Am I missing something here?

—Rich M.

The answer to Rich's question, after the jump!

Decoding Creative's Drivers

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:21:57 -0500

I used to be able to connect my Xbox 360 to my Audigy Platinum and have it decode the 5.1 signal. However, in my new X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion soundcard, it looks like Creative disabled this feature in the drivers. Is there any way around this to get my computer to decode 5.1? This feature was supposed to be one of the card’s selling points.

—Curtis Leong

Oh yeah, how 'bout that. Answer after the jump!

Creative Announces X-Fi Notebook Soundcard. Again.

Paul Lilly — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:12:24 -0500

Creative this week unveiled its Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook, which as the name implies is an add-in soundcard for (cue the drum roll) notebooks. But wait, doesn't Creative already offer an X-Fi geared towards road warriors? The answer is yes, and the X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook has been available for some time now, but this re-release sports a slimmer profile, a new color scheme, and the ability to transmit wirelessly.

That's right - when paired with the optional Creative Wireless Receiver, the X-Fi will have the ability to beam music to your speakers rather than remain tethered. The new soundcard supports up to 4 wireless receivers, and each one can be placed up to 100 feet away from the notebook.

The slimmed down peripheral fits into both ExpressCard 34 and 54 slots (previous version is 54 only), and brings the usual assortment of goodies to the table, including CMSS-3D, EAX Advanced HD, and Creative's Crystalizer technology. You get a pair of headphones bundled in, along with a free download of PowerDVD with full DTS and Dolby Digital decoding support.

Look for availability by the end of month, with the X-Fi Notebook priced at $80 and optional receiver commanding $70.

Creative Finally Releases Vista Functional X-Fi Soundcard Drivers

Paul Lilly — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:05:11 -0500

We were beginning to wonder if Creative would ever update its X-Fi soundcard drives to work properly in Vista, and after the whole Daniel_K fiasco, we were about ready to throw in the towel. For those that stuck it out, Creative has finally released a new driver package that fixes the hardware Dolby Digital and DTS decoding in its X-Fi cards running under Vista. The company also added DVD Audio playback, a feature that previously went by the wayside when upgrading from XP to Vista.

The new driver also addresses a niggling bug that causes system crashes when switching to an unsupported sampling rate in the Audio Creation Mode while Dolby Digital Live is enabled.

All X-Fi soundcards except the Xtreme Audio version are supported with the driver update.

Watchdog: April 2008

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:22:04 -0500

Our consumer advocate investigates Camera Addict, Creative ALchemy, and EZVideotools

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:47:30 -0600

Who’d have thunk it? Long considered a dead zone, soundcards are making a resurgence. Driven by an outcry for audio that doesn’t sound like a box of snap, crackle, pop every time you access your USB ports, manufacturers are releasing new soundcards that surpass the free audio that comes with your motherboard. This month, we test an Auzentech card that uses a Creative Labs chip and Asus’s new entry into PC audio.

Click Read More for more.

So Much for that Front Panel

David Murphy — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:00:48 -0600

Where are my front-panel connectors? Where is my audio? What the heck is going on, Creative?

No BS Podcast #21 - The Tuesday Edition

Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:18:35 -0500

Welcome to the super-special Tuesday edition of the No BS podcast. Today we talk about Safari, the discrete soundcard, and a whole lot more!

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337