I would check the forums at creative.com.  I was there about another issue and saw many, many, posts about this exact subject.  Perhaps they can be of more assistance.

 

 

You have a 730 H2C?...how are you liking it (other than the noises).  How has it performed for you since you got it.  I'd appreciate any feedback.

Back of queue. I have spent months chasing Dell trying to get the issue fixed and they have done nothing. They even sent an engineer out with fans to help fix a soundcard issue...

 

Like I say join the long queue: The Queue

raydun , does the Audigy SE OEM  have  vista drivers u can find drivers for the card at creative  and are  the pins the same as the X-FI card to hook up to the front head phone and mic jacks on the XPS 730 , if the pins are the same its a go.. Im extremely suprised Dell has not Fixed the Screech specially on the New  Expensive XPS 730 .. Some old Dell , no fix for all XPS Vista models with X-FI cards , Dell is in Denial of a problem. and as far as i know the Audigy cards do not have a screech problem only X-FI cards.  Creative recently released new vista drivers for the Audigy cards u can find a link at the creative vista  forums . I have an HP-BlackBird with a retail X_fi card it has no screech ive just ordered my second HP-Blackbird , im done buying Dell ,  the Dell Screech was Free and unwanted . And i would be greatly interested in what XPS support says about the Screech in your New XPS 730 , id send it back buy an  HP-Blackbird u have 21 days no questions asked to get a refund   

I'm not sure raydum >< but I know it happens with my system too xps 630I.  Sadly under my device manager my sound card is called  "realtex high Definition Audio Device" 

 

In Itunes I lowered the max volume to at least 90% and the same in the windows sound lvl bar to 90%-50%.  I never put it to max  and that helped out a lot.   you can try it with that game as well and see if it works and just adjust your speaker to be louder instead of the hardware to max.

Thank you all for your informative responses, much appreciated.

 

I disabled Soundblaster enhancements and disabled EAX effects and played Crysis with virtually no crackling so I don't know if this may be a possible (Crysis) solution or maybe it will come back again with a vengence.!

I will continue testing.

 

I have not experienced any sound issues at all in any of the other games I have played :- Grid / COD4 / Frontline Fuel Of War etc, or any other software, so I have not taken up the issue with support. Having read the countless posts you mentioned I feel it would be a lot of effort without much hope of a resolution so I will only take it up with support if it deteriorates or happens in other software.

 

(Note : I have only had one actual screech, the rest of the time it has been a crackling which was always preceded by a big drop in framerate, after that the game became choppy with stuttering fps).

 

In general I am well pleased with the XPS730 as it handles above games (exc Crysis) @ 1920 x 1200 res with everything maxed out so I am a happy gamer.

 

Anyway many thanks again for all your advice I have taken it on board for future reference.

 

 

 

I have discussed this at length with Dell, the position as I understand it is that:

 

1. Dell are aware of the problem

2. Dell believe it is a problem with the creative Drivers

3. Dell are working with Creative to release som new drivers that will resolve this problem.

4. As soon as this is done the drivers will be released.

 

There isn't a time scale for this unfortunately :(

 

Jonathan