Auzentech X-Plosion 7.1 Cinema card really quiet.

[Pine]

It was absolutely painful to get this card into my PCI slot on a P7P55D LE in my HAF 932 full tower case, because the IO shield is extremely large and touches the back of my HAF 932 too early. Not sure how I got it in, but I did.
The fist time I did it was perfect. Then I reseated it because originally it was a bit loose (Albeit the sound volume was great and the quality fantastic). Once I reseated it the volume became inaudible. I tried everything as I thought the card wasn't producing sound, turns out it was so quiet that I had to max my speakers, my windows volume and the speaker volume from the driver panel, and now I can hear my music and other audio pretty well (although it'd be nice a bit louder).
I was wondering why it produces such quiet audio, because before I reseated it, it was perfectly loud (My speakers near min, my windows volume at about half and in the driver control panel speakers at near min) and it sounded great. I'm thinking I should maybe switch PCI slots, but I've already reseated it and that didn't help, and it will be hard to get out and into another PCI slot.
One more issue I had is that I got the Carcharias headset to use with this card (It was an absolute steal at the door crasher grand opening of Ontario's NCIX (camped since 5am :D). The problem is, my speaker's front line in is what my earphones need to be plugged into to use them with the sound card (I haven't opened the Carcharias yet on account of this problem, might have to return it...). So I'm thinking I'll have to unplug my speaker's front line in and plug in my Carcharias' jack every time I want to switch? Since there's no front panel audio on this card, this is going to be a huge pain (especially because my case's back is pretty hard to get to with this computer table) and maybe the Carcharias isn't even worth opening.

Can't really use my sound card with the first issue, so any and all help is greatly appreciated because I really want to keep this sound card.

Edit: Reseated multiple times, still quiet. Tested in my older XP rig, still quiet. Gonna RMA unless anybody has some suggestions.

[mo' power]

Have you tried reinstalling the driver? I had a similar issue with that same card. In fact, I'm still using it. As for your headset, I used to use a splitter on my old audigy2 zs. It looks like this and will probably work.

GP 1/8" ADAPTER | Headphone Accessories | Ratings & Reviews | TheSource.ca

Good luck!

[Pine]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I actually got it replaced at NCIX at First Markham Place no problems. I installed it, then the Windows 7 x64 drivers in Vista SP1 compatibility mode (Heard it helps) and this thing was good to go.
I love the sound from it, beautiful. I was considering a switch or a Y splitter like the one you linked me to, but I was slightly wary of sound quality degradation; am I just paranoid? I can unplug my headset/speakers when needed, really. It's not too big of a pain for the sound quality I get.
One more problem I was having, when I test the Microphone of my Carcharias headset with this sound card in Soundbooth or Sound recorder or the likes, there seems to be a loud varying mosquito-type noise (reminds of sounds in DOS games) and it's rather annoying. When tested with Skype sound test, I didn't hear any such thing, just some static. I was thinking of maybe re-enabling my onboard and using that for the Mic line in.

[mo' power]

I didn't notice any sound degradation when using that splitter. In fact, I have it set up on my girlfriend's pc with a short extension so she doesn't have to reach behind her pc to plug/unplug her headset and speaker plug. It's a 3' extension with the plug at one end and a the jack at the other end. You can find it for about $6