Creative X-Fi and High Temps (60c)

A

artimasz

Gawd
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Jan 28, 2002
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Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102019 (Card in Question)

I finally returned to creative after 5 years of not using their cards. My last card was a Sondigo Inferno that just up and died a couple weeks ago. I went to Best Buy and picked up the above card and installed it. Everything is running fine as far as I can tell; the card plays audio and drivers are not erroring out -and no sound pops- I'm glad to see creative ironed that out on this PCI-E version. So...

Although everything is working fine, the card seems to be getting very hot. I would say upwards of 60c. I plan on installing a PCI slot cooler.

1) Does the X-Fi normally get this hot during idle operation (not playing sound)? Again, the card hits about 58c Max according to my Infrared Thermometer.

2) Should I switch it out with another Sound Card, or use On-board instead? From what I can tell, the P5Q uses a new Realtek 1200 chip that has good (not great) sound, according to the folks at X-Bit Labs.
 
No idea on the heat issue sorry. If you use on board, you want to use the digital output into a digital receiver or speaker. On board analogue, aka those 1/8th to rca outputs, sucks.

Do you game? Have Vista? Why does the heat matter?
 
spaceman said:
No idea on the heat issue sorry. If you use on board, you want to use the digital output into a digital receiver or speaker. On board analogue, aka those 1/8th to rca outputs, sucks.

Do you game? Have Vista? Why does the heat matter?
Click to expand...

My question was guaged more as a "general do you have this issue?" sort of question. I use Vista 64 /w SP1, and don't do much gaming, although I do game on occasion: Half Life 2, Age of Empires, Crysis, Bioshock, etc. I think I mainly watch blu ray movies.

I use a pair of beyerdynamic DT770s with a C-MOY amp, primarily.

The heat matters because I'm worried about eventual damage to components and 58c seems a little hot for a sound card to me, but again, this is my first X-Fi card. My other Sondigo 7.1 and the Phillips Ultimate Edge before it ran cool.
 
I will bet you that the cover on that card is the culprit. Probably traps heat and thus builds it up a bit. Try a dedicated fan over it or just scrap it for a better external dac. There are a couple of nice dacs under $200 which will improve your sound significantly. However, you do have a pair of 770s which are not exactly good sounding headphones. No offense.
 
Oh, none taken.

These 770s are close to 5 years old, I plan on changing them out for some better ones, but they have been solid. I bet ya' thats probably whats happening with the cover on the card. I was thinking about getting a nice DAC, like the ones from E-MU, but decided to go the cheaper route and just pick up a X-fi.

I could take the cover off the card, but that Fat1ity guy might get mad at me :cool:
 
the first x-fi's had a heatsink. the x-fi cpu runs at 400 mhz and can get hot. just make sure your case has airflow and ut shouldnt be a problem

and a lot of peeps love the dt770 (though not me :) )
 
It would be a good idea to measure the actual temp to be sure but it shouldnt get to 60C if there is decent airflow.

In many PC cases I found the bottom area of my case suffered from stagnant air.
To help with this, I left one of the lower PCI slots open by removing the rear PCI slot blanking plate.
Air will flow in or out of that slot, forcing lower case air to move.

Whenever I had worse hotspots in my PC (ie hot voltage regulators on an overclocked graphics card, hot chipsets, hot memory), I pointed a silent 80mm fan at it and the problem vanished.
Recently I bought an Antec 900 case and even on its lowest fan speeds, the air throughput is more than enough to remove the extra cooling.
 
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