The Sound BlasterX AE-5 Owners' Club

[HB]Rugrat · 7 Nov 2019 at 09:38

maschio said:
Cheers. Have run latencymon a number of times today. It says asstor64.sys and dxgkrnl.sys are running high latency.

Have updated bios and As media sata driver related to asstor64. Latencymon still says they are an issue however i have no audio issues today so will need to see how thing pan out.

Are you running any fan / led controller software? I had the same problem a few years ago and it nearly drove me mad. Ultimately i discovered the NZXT cam software was responsible - though I know people have had the same issue with other manufacturer's software. Because I needed the software running I ended up switching to an external usb device and the problem went away.

maschio · 9 Nov 2019 at 11:29

[HB]Rugrat said:
Are you running any fan / led controller software? I had the same problem a few years ago and it nearly drove me mad. Ultimately i discovered the NZXT cam software was responsible - though I know people have had the same issue with other manufacturer's software. Because I needed the software running I ended up switching to an external usb device and the problem went away.

Only corsair icue to run a H115 RGB, RAM, some fans, KB, mouse and mat. Strangely though i haven't had any issues over the last few weeks but if it returns i'll look at that as a potential source of the problem.

ceemuk · 10 Nov 2019 at 11:42

I'm new to this card, and installed the SB Connect 2 software to tinker with the RGB.

Is it just me or is this part rubbish?

The two RGB areas on the bottom, and edge of the card always light up in different colours despite selecting 'Solo' and one colour in the Connect 2 Lighting menu.

Then, whenever the system is reboot, or first powered up, even with all Lighting turned off, the RGB sections still light up and going into the Connect 2 menu to turn it on, then off again, resolves things temporarily, until the next reboot/powerup!

I'm enjoying the card itself, but given the Connect 2 software hasn't been updated since 'June 2018', it seems Creative have still learned very little re. software drivers in the twenty years I've known them!

maschio · 10 Nov 2019 at 12:47

ceemuk said:
I'm new to this card, and installed the SB Connect 2 software to tinker with the RGB.

Is it just me or is this part rubbish?

The two RGB areas on the bottom, and edge of the card always light up in different colours despite selecting 'Solo' and one colour in the Connect 2 Lighting menu.

Then, whenever the system is reboot, or first powered up, even with all Lighting turned off, the RGB sections still light up and going into the Connect 2 menu to turn it on, then off again, resolves things temporarily, until the next reboot/powerup!

I'm enjoying the card itself, but given the Connect 2 software hasn't been updated since 'June 2018', it seems Creative have still learned very little re. software drivers in the twenty years I've known them!

Post #365 of this thread has latest update link.

ceemuk · 11 Nov 2019 at 00:17

maschio said:
Post #365 of this thread has latest update link.

The lighting is controlled by the Soundblaster Connect program, not the Soundblaster Command program, so as expected that update changed nothing, certainly on my machine.

My Connect version is 3.2.28.0, and command version is 3.4.41.1. That's despite running the update in post 365, which downloads as '3.4.38.00' anyway.

Oasis1974 · 12 Nov 2019 at 21:27

Once the Command Software gets RGB lighting for the Ae5 you don't need the Connect running aswell hard to justify 2 programmes running in the background. Thing I noticed about the Stereo Direct in Command you no longer have the option to set any preset SBX sound enchantments like Cinema etc. Connect let you do it where it's greyed out now seems it's going for true unfiltered sound in Direct Mode probably as it should be.

Wilkeh · 3 Dec 2019 at 13:38

Hey folks. So I've had my card for a few months and just this week I'm getting terrible popping noises through speakers and headphones. I've run Latencymon and had the following -

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

I've done what it's asked but still popping it's nuts off. Never had this issue before in 20 years of PC playing. Any ideas?

ToTheMax · 4 Dec 2019 at 12:09

Wilkeh said:
Hey folks. So I've had my card for a few months and just this week I'm getting terrible popping noises through speakers and headphones. I've run Latencymon and had the following -

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

I've done what it's asked but still popping it's nuts off. Never had this issue before in 20 years of PC playing. Any ideas?

What's changed in the last week? And/or any windows updates? Try rolling back anything changed to the state you had previously. If that fails then maybe fresh install time.

ToTheMax · 4 Dec 2019 at 14:17

Wilkeh said:
Hey folks. So I've had my card for a few months and just this week I'm getting terrible popping noises through speakers and headphones. I've run Latencymon and had the following -

Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.

I've done what it's asked but still popping it's nuts off. Never had this issue before in 20 years of PC playing. Any ideas?

Also try out the new command software which just dropped 3.4.56. Seems good on my rig.

Oasis1974 · 5 Dec 2019 at 16:34

There saying hopefully January 2020 for the RGB option added for the Ae-5 in the Command Software from Creative.

maschio · 6 Dec 2019 at 23:25

R3X said:
Can't blame you at all and tbf 5 years is pretty good run for any computer system !

Just make sure every component is new, nothing from the old system comes over and maybe keep the old data on an external hdd for temporary at the beginning, worth giving all your old data a good virus scan with malwarebytes and 2nd decent AV scanner to be 100% safe too. Literally the only thing I would take over from the old pc is the bookmarks, then see how it goes

Well BF came and went and i ended up with an aorus elite, 3800x, corsair RM750x and a 1tb aorus nvme gen4. Will keep the AIO, ram and drives and install a fresh win 10. Fingers crossed this will solve the issues and can get back to some decent audio with the AE5 and katana

ToTheMax · 12 Dec 2019 at 15:09

Sadly leaving the AE5 club, great card but needed optical in and XLR phantom power so upgraded to the big boy AE9

The £50 discount also helped persuade me and soften the blow.

clone · 6 Feb 2020 at 23:33

I've just got one from the MM is the best driver on their site,I'll not be running the the rgb strip and just need the basics for gaming.

AStaley · 7 Feb 2020 at 15:17

clone said:
I've just got one from the MM is the best driver on their site,I'll not be running the the rgb strip and just need the basics for gaming.

Yes, use the one from there site. The new Command software also has a software/driver update feature which I always find welcome.

clone · 8 Feb 2020 at 21:43

Got it all running great

Skynet5 · 20 Feb 2020 at 00:52

ToTheMax said:
Sadly leaving the AE5 club, great card but needed optical in and XLR phantom power so upgraded to the big boy AE9 The £50 discount also helped persuade me and soften the blow.

Bon voyage.

Random Guy Esq. · 28 Feb 2020 at 20:49

Has anyone here compared the 3D sound of the AE-5/G6 with that of the X3? I've seen one or two reviews of the latter comparing it to CMSS-3D.

Mick-1965 · 29 Feb 2020 at 12:46

I've recently bought an X3, which has replaced an AE-5.

I quite like the sx-fi of the X3 it sounds quite different to sbx. It's hard to describe in what way but.... the sx-fi seems to emulate a set of 7.1 speakers in a room rather than trying to emulate directional sound in the head set.

Our lad seems to love it too. First thing he said while playing bf5 is " I can hear where they are " with an evil grin on his face.

You really need to try it to see if you like it.

If you buy from direct from creative, you can get 15% off by signing up and entering the serial of your ae-5.
I also got a free pair of cal headphones.
Plus you've got 30 days no quibble full refund option to return it if you don't like it for any reason

Random Guy Esq. · 29 Feb 2020 at 15:41

Mick-1965 said:
I've recently bought an X3, which has replaced an AE-5.

I quite like the sx-fi of the X3 it sounds quite different to sbx. It's hard to describe in what way but.... the sx-fi seems to emulate a set of 7.1 speakers in a room rather than trying to emulate directional sound in the head set.

Our lad seems to love it too. First thing he said while playing bf5 is " I can hear where they are " with an evil grin on his face.

You really need to try it to see if you like it.

If you buy from direct from creative, you can get 15% off by signing up and entering the serial of your ae-5.
I also got a free pair of cal headphones.
Plus you've got 30 days no quibble full refund option to return it if you don't like it for any reason

Thanks man, sounds like it's worth a try alright.

clone · 1 Mar 2020 at 12:04

When im in game I listen to the radio online and every time I shoot the music goes down how can I stop it?
Ive done the don't let blah blah ajust volume thingy.
thanks.