Creative X-Fi Titanium popping and stuttering

[Kovok]

I've got the X-Fi Titanium Fatality edition and no matter what I do I get this annoying popping noise sometimes accompanied with a stuttering. It used to be fine, then one day I went to play Dragon Age and I just noticed that all the audio was popping and it was rather annoying.

Here's what I've tried so far with no success:

Different PCI-E1 slot
Enabling and disabling spread spectrum
Locking and unlocking my CPU (Phenom II)
Modified drivers
Legit drivers from creative
headphones (still there)
Disabling and re-enabling onboard audio
reinstalling drivers several times
Disabling every feature in the control panel (CMSS-3D, EAX, Crystalizer)


My motherboard is a MA790XT-UD4P, CPU Phenom II X2 550, GPU GTX 260.

Anyone got any ideas before I send this thing to the B/S/T section?

[mo' power]

Does this only happen with your game? Does it happen when listening to music? Does it happen when watching video clips or movies? Please give us a little more info.

[Kovok]

Happens with anything that makes sound. Hard to tell in Left 4 Dead 2 but it's really obvious in Dragon Age.

[Zero82z]

Try onboard sound. If it doesn't produce the same issue, chances are your card is faulty.

[mo' power]

Another thing to consider, running both onboard and pci sound could cause issues.

[Kovok]

Damn, does it on onboard too. I guess the better sound card makes the popping sound "better" as it's only really noticeable at volume on the onboard. I'll probably get crucified for saying this but I was happy with Vista. 7 hasn't been so sweet for me.

Anyways, it happens on all my audio cards, something to do with the windows installation maybe?

I've had this happen to me before and although very tricky to diagnose the operating system seems to be the culprit in every instance. The popping and hissing noise is also extremely hard on the ears if its the same one I've had in the past. Funny thing is it's inconsistent and not always reproducible but theres a couple things you can try short of re-installing the OS. I've had a couple glitchy glitches since moving from XP to win7 64bit with my prelude but keep in mind that the prelude is a 32 bit card not a 64bit card. Therefore it is using a shim of some kind between the two. Back when 32 bit OS's came out people were having issues with their 16bit cards and the shims they made to bridge the gap were not without their problems.

1. Open the sound in control panel then open speakers in the playback tab and sound blaster in the speakers properties disable enhancements. This has resolved a couple different issues for me.
2. Completely remove all the drivers make sure win7 isn't blocking your install (it blocked a few non whql drivers/software) and caused this problem.

[LionRed]

Sounds like you have your sample rates set too high. In supported formats..in the windows control panel under sound/device/properties. I always find if I go with anything above 48kHz I get undesirable effects.

[grimx133]

Also check your windows volume, lot of people crank it to full, then use an audio program, or volume knob, etc., for adjustment. This can cause some distortion. Even if it isn't at 100%, try lowering it a bit, see if it has any difference in audio quality.

[Kovok]

Thank you all for the assistance, unfortunately nothing has worked so far. I'm going to reinstall windows and see what happens after.