I'm pretty mad about this situation. After hearing all the good things about Windows 7's speed and performance increases over Vista, I said, hey let's try it. Everything seemed to be working well, until I decided to install the drivers for my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum device. These drivers were working well on Vista; no visible problems. Though, as soon as I installed them in Windows 7, I received crackling and popping noises instead of actual sound or music. So, whenever my computer would want to emit a sound, it would be a very loud pop or crack, or, sometimes, nothing at all. Bottom line: the speakers were pretty much unusable. I could sometimes get the drivers to work without this occurrence, though, as soon as I would restart my computer the problem would come back. I worked at this for days, trying to find different drivers, uninstalling, reinstalling. I even re-installed the whole OS. Nothing worked.
In a desperate move, I tried something I didn't think would actually work. I went into msconfig and turned on Maximum Memory, something I really did not want to do. After re-booting the sound worked. But this seems like an extreme solution from something pretty simple. After turning this option on, I now only have 3GB of memory. I paid for 4, my computer should use all of it. Obviously, I'm angry that Creative (or something else) is preventing me from taking advantage of my PC's performance. Really, is this the only option I have to fix my sound problem? Or is this it? I'm astounded that the sound driver would even affect my computer's memory usage.
It might seem as if I'm overreacting, but I really shouldn't be using 45% plus memory (idle) after implementing this fix. Just a few hours ago, I went to see the difference between max memory on and max memory off, and, with it off, I was using about 25 - 35% while the system was idle.
Core PC Specs (i.e. not all is here)
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
4.00 GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX
WDC 500GB HD @ 7200 RPM
EDIT: I am NOT upset with Microsoft in the slightest. It is not their fault. I am thinking it is either Creative or nVidia's fault for not making their drivers compatible with each other, as I have seen finger pointing at each other by both parties. Sorry if it seemed as if I was not clear.
In a desperate move, I tried something I didn't think would actually work. I went into msconfig and turned on Maximum Memory, something I really did not want to do. After re-booting the sound worked. But this seems like an extreme solution from something pretty simple. After turning this option on, I now only have 3GB of memory. I paid for 4, my computer should use all of it. Obviously, I'm angry that Creative (or something else) is preventing me from taking advantage of my PC's performance. Really, is this the only option I have to fix my sound problem? Or is this it? I'm astounded that the sound driver would even affect my computer's memory usage.
It might seem as if I'm overreacting, but I really shouldn't be using 45% plus memory (idle) after implementing this fix. Just a few hours ago, I went to see the difference between max memory on and max memory off, and, with it off, I was using about 25 - 35% while the system was idle.
Core PC Specs (i.e. not all is here)
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
4.00 GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX
WDC 500GB HD @ 7200 RPM
EDIT: I am NOT upset with Microsoft in the slightest. It is not their fault. I am thinking it is either Creative or nVidia's fault for not making their drivers compatible with each other, as I have seen finger pointing at each other by both parties. Sorry if it seemed as if I was not clear.
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