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Creative Sound Blaster X4

Joined
Apr 23, 2009
Messages
50 (0.01/day)
Location
Bad Nenndorf, Germany
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, watercooled
Motherboard Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming
Cooling Custom Watercooling-Loop with 2x 240mm and 1x 120mm Radiators
Memory 4x 8Gb G.Skill Trident Z 3600 MHz
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA
Storage 2x Crucial P1 1TB, 1x Mushkin Reactor 1TB
Display(s) Cooler Master Tempest GP27Q
Case Corsair Obsidian 500D
Power Supply Superflower Leadex Platinum 750W
If anyone is still in the market for the Sound Blaster X4, I just bought one directly from Creative as B-Stock for 90€ (MSRP is 140€). The unit arrived in mint condition, I think only the package had been opened once. It comes with a 1 year warranty and works fine so far.

They still have more in stock:

 

sleightflight

New Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2024
Messages
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I purchased the X4 at a really good sale price to replace my aging xfi titanium fatality sound card, my old card is working fine but it is directly underneath my gpu, so I was concerned about airflow to the gpu.
Unfortunately I can't get any surround sound via toslink to my pioneer 5.1 surround sound system. If I set in windows sound output as creative X4 or optical X4 the sound test doesn't activate all the speakers.
In the creative software I can get all the speakers to work on the sound test in the optical output.
Creative are telling me that it's a setting thing.
 

shannada

New Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2024
Messages
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I purchased the X4 at a really good sale price to replace my aging xfi titanium fatality sound card, my old card is working fine but it is directly underneath my gpu, so I was concerned about airflow to the gpu.
Unfortunately I can't get any surround sound via toslink to my pioneer 5.1 surround sound system. If I set in windows sound output as creative X4 or optical X4 the sound test doesn't activate all the speakers.
In the creative software I can get all the speakers to work on the sound test in the optical output.
Creative are telling me that it's a setting thing.
Hi Sleightflight, I recently purchased the X4 after my previous Sound Blaster Z started to fail. I had some weird setup problems with the X4 where the sound test wouldn't work properly using the line outs into my Logitech Z906 speakers. Specifically, the sound test for the subwoofer channel would not sound. Also when playing music or movies the sound was tinny and had a strange hollowness to it. After a couple of hours of diagnosis, I was able to fix the problem. It was the incomplete uninstallation of the previous Sound Blaster Z audio drivers. Simply installing the Sound Blaster Command Centre software (which claims to uninstall the drivers as well) was not enough. I had to go into Windows Device Manager, and found the SB Z drivers were still installed and uninstalled them via Device Manager. Now the sound test works properly, and the subwoofer channel is detected. And the sound quality returned to "normal", with none of the previous tinny and hollowness. In fact the sound quality now is a significant improvement on my previous Sound Blaster Z.

Maybe this might help you too?
 

sleightflight

New Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2024
Messages
5 (0.14/day)
Hi Sleightflight, I recently purchased the X4 after my previous Sound Blaster Z started to fail. I had some weird setup problems with the X4 where the sound test wouldn't work properly using the line outs into my Logitech Z906 speakers. Specifically, the sound test for the subwoofer channel would not sound. Also when playing music or movies the sound was tinny and had a strange hollowness to it. After a couple of hours of diagnosis, I was able to fix the problem. It was the incomplete uninstallation of the previous Sound Blaster Z audio drivers. Simply installing the Sound Blaster Command Centre software (which claims to uninstall the drivers as well) was not enough. I had to go into Windows Device Manager, and found the SB Z drivers were still installed and uninstalled them via Device Manager. Now the sound test works properly, and the subwoofer channel is detected. And the sound quality returned to "normal", with none of the previous tinny and hollowness. In fact the sound quality now is a significant improvement on my previous Sound Blaster Z.

Maybe this might help you too?
OK thanks for the advice, I will have a look to see if I can find the original drivers.
 

sleightflight

New Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2024
Messages
5 (0.14/day)
Hi, I have given up with the X4 for spdif output to my pioneer 5.1 surround sound system.
I did go into device manager and I uninstalled the old creative sound card but it didn't cure the problem, I don't understand why when I select spdif output in Windows, spdif output in creative software, which on the creative sound output sounds all the channels and the sub sound test sounds OK that the graphics equiliser in the creative software litteraly does nothing, prep amp and all of the sliders do nothing, switching it off and on makes no difference to the sound output.
I found a different driver set for the old xfi fatality card and that got the old card working again with the pimax Crystal light software still installed.
But some weird sound effect is making the pimax speakers sound like I'm in a hall and the microphone is also affected the same way.
Getting really frustrated.
 
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