Is My Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Dead?

[ryan9298b2]

Ok, so I have had a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series for around 2 years now running in my main gaming system.  Then one day, Inexplicably, the speaker let out a soft pop without any audio load, the "X-Fi" light went out on the side and audio was no more.  I tried reinstalling drivers, letting windows 7 update install drivers, and reseating it in the slot/trying a different slot.  It is running logitech X-530 5.1 speakers with all of the jack plugged in (analog) but software configured to 2.1.  It is also in an ASUS Rampage III Extreme motherboard.

 

There was something peculiar when I tried putting it into another system though... I put it into my media PC with an MSI Z87M-G43 and plugged in the optical cable going from the card to my Onkyo TX-NR609 receiver.  Without any drivers installed it worked in 2.0 mode!  I am 100% sure that it was coming from the soundcard because the only audio cable plugged into the PC was in the X-Fi card.  The HDMI audio from the GTX 650 Ti Boost was disabled in the nVidia control panel, i'm certain.  As of now, the card is recognized as "High Definition Audio Device", in my experiences, a very generic name, lol.  I then ran windows update which installed drivers for Creative X-Fi Audio Device - WDM.  After restarting, the card did not work.  It was showing up as "Creative SB X-Fi", and the drivers had been installed.  

 

The weird thing is that, although device manager detected the card as "Creative SB X-Fi", when I tried to launch the Creative Audio Control Panel, it said something to the effect of, "The audio device supported by this application is not detected.  The application will exit." At this point the light on the side of the card still wasn't on (and hadn't been since it "died" in my main machine.  When I went to test the audio device in Control Panel-->Hardware and Sound-->Sound, the green bar showed that the test audio was playing, but nothing was coming out of the speakers.  When I went into the SPDIF out-->Properties-->Advanced and tried to change the Default format from "2 Channel, 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality)" to "2 Channel, 24 bit, 96000 Hz (Studio Quality", it would change, but when I pressed "Test" to the right of the selection box, a window popped up saying, "Failed to Play Test Tone."  This worked before I installed the drivers.  

 

The only two options that come up in the Control Panel-->Hardware and Sound-->Sound-->Playback menu are SPDIF out - Creative SB X-Fi - Default Device, Internal AUX Jack - Creative SB X-Fi - Disabled, and then all of the nVidia disabled audio options.  On the recording side of things, there is Digital-In - Creative SB X-Fi - Default Device, "What U Hear" - Creative SB X-Fi - Disabled, Microphone FP - Creative SB X-Fi - Disabled-unplugged, and Line-In - Creative SB X-Fi - Disabled-unplugged.

 

 

I really don't know what else to do!  I am sorry to bombard whoever is reading this with a bloody book, but it is how it is.  Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

[panfriedpuppies]

I read your "bloody book."

All it did was seriously confuse me : [

 

I wish I could tell you something useful, but I'm stumped.

 

Best of luck with this, mate. I don't think your card is dead though.

[ryan9298b2]

Confusing in the way it is worded, or confusing in the sense that you don't know what is causing this...

 

EDIT: Or both...

Edited June 21, 2013 by ryan9298b2

[panfriedpuppies]

The latter, mate. I have no clue what's causing your problem.

[swifty7]

the problem got to be your sound card since you tried it on a different computer.  You did try all possible outputs.....right?

[mvitkun]

I'm guessing it's on it's last legs.

 

you could try baking it,though not sure if it would help.

 

if you end up buying a new card I'd advise an Asus Xonar series as most of them have a 3 year warranty vs the shitty 1 year warranty on the creative.

[ryan9298b2]

the problem got to be your sound card since you tried it on a different computer.  You did try all possible outputs.....right?

 

Yes, I did.  It only gives me the option for Optical, whether or whether not anything is plugged into the analog jacks.

 

 

I'm guessing it's on it's last legs.

 

you could try baking it,though not sure if it would help.

 

if you end up buying a new card I'd advise an Asus Xonar series as most of them have a 3 year warranty vs the shitty 1 year warranty on the creative.

 

At what temperature, I mean i'm not opposed to it, I just don't want to muck it up.

 

I was looking at either a DSX, or if I am feeling rich,i'll save up for an STX and some SP2500s...

[ryan9298b2]

I've been looking around, and something on the order of 385F seems to be about the right temperature.  Someone with a similar card did it and it worked.  I figure if it isn't working anyway, the only thing to loose is the smell of solder in my house for the next couple weeks...

[mvitkun]

I've been looking around, and something on the order of 385F seems to be about the right temperature.  Someone with a similar card did it and it worked.  I figure if it isn't working anyway, the only thing to loose is the smell of solder in my house for the next couple weeks...

yeah according to Linus, 385 degrees.

 

put an aluminium sheet onto a sheet pan.

roll an aluminium sheet into balls 4 balls and put those onto the aluminium sheet.

put the card onto those balls. (remove everything from the card aside from the pcie cover.it should be just a bare pcb)

 

and heat it at 385 degrees for 7-8 minutes.

 

then take it out and let it cool for an hour or two on the aluminium balls,move it very carefully as the solder points should be in a liquid state.

 

then reassemble the heatsink

[ryan9298b2]

Pcie cover?

[ryan9298b2]

There is a pci bracket, and a metal shroud over the whole card... 

[ryan9298b2]

Ok, well the deed is done.  I'll see what's up in about an hour or two!

[ryan9298b2]

Well, It didn't work... I decided to throw it in again on the other side, processing chips facing up, and there was a much stronger solder smell and a little smoke...  I haven't tried it yet, but once I'm done i'll post a vlog about the experience to youtube and share a link.  Thank you guys/girls (can't be sexist) for all of the help, and I really appreciate it!

[swifty7]

the reason it didn't work is because you have to  season it first.   :P

[ryan9298b2]

Lol!

[h264]

You popped a cap on the board, so you'd have to find and replace it to fix the card.  But yeah, it's definitely toast now anyways!

[DaftBehemoth]

I was looking at either a DSX, or if I am feeling rich,i'll save up for an STX and some SP2500s...

I just wanted to let you know that I made the jump from my Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Platinum Champion soundcard to the Asus Xonar Essence STX and let me tell you, the difference is night and day. The STX makes my Creative card sound like a piece of junk. I didn't expect there to be such a huge difference in my Klipsch Promedia speakers, I originally bought the card to run my new headset without thinking of my speakers. There's so much more depth in the lows and the mids and highs are even more crisp. I think anything in the Xonar line would serve you well as I can now see that the Creative stuff was a waste of money :P. Also, if you're considering the SP2500's, I'd recommend checking out the Promedia 2.1's first. I can't give them a good enough recommendation :)