Rating: 
Summary: Great piece of hardware!
Review: After using an old Creative SB Live! Value (The original, not the 5.1) for several years, I finally upgraded, and I must say I'm seriously impressed. As the other reviewers have said, Creative has horrible tech support, as was evident when I upgraded to XP with my previous card. This one, however, went in flawlessly. To anyone buying this who isn't a complete geek such as myself, I have a few pointers... 1) Uninstall your previous card first (Go to device manager, right-click on it, and pick Uninstall). 2) Take a good look at the directions, because there are several cables to hook up to both the card and the Platinum drive. 3) If you're using older (Analog/cheap) speakers, plug them into "Line 1", not the main speaker jack. And 4) When you turn the computer on after installing the card, put that install CD in right away, because otherwise windows bugs you about the locations of a few files during the PnP setup.Anyway, enjoy. This is a great product... The kind of quality I've come to expect from Creative. Huzzah!
Rating:
Summary: Great piece of hardware!
Review: After using an old Creative SB Live! Value (The original, not the 5.1) for several years, I finally upgraded, and I must say I'm seriously impressed. As the other reviewers have said, Creative has horrible tech support, as was evident when I upgraded to XP with my previous card. This one, however, went in flawlessly. To anyone buying this who isn't a complete geek such as myself, I have a few pointers... 1) Uninstall your previous card first (Go to device manager, right-click on it, and pick Uninstall). 2) Take a good look at the directions, because there are several cables to hook up to both the card and the Platinum drive. 3) If you're using older (Analog/cheap) speakers, plug them into "Line 1", not the main speaker jack. And 4) When you turn the computer on after installing the card, put that install CD in right away, because otherwise windows bugs you about the locations of a few files during the PnP setup. Anyway, enjoy. This is a great product... The kind of quality I've come to expect from Creative. Huzzah!
Rating: 
Summary: Run Screaming in the Opposite Direction
Review: I thought this would be a nice upgrade from the SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 , which had good performance. Upon initial install None of the audio applications are finding the card. This includes the MediaSource that comes with the Card.Hmmm.. It seems that to really uninstall the SB Live! first you must follow a page long proceedure outlined in a service ID file at Creative Tech suppport but not mentioned in the install instructions...another hour and two more reboots, and now my Live Card and all its applications are really really gone from Windows. Unfortunaltely this did NOT fix the problem. SO my next bit of advice from Creative goes like this:
"advice you to uninstall all the drivers and applications of the sound card. Remove the sound card from the PCI slot. Update your motherboard BIOS to the latest updated followed by windows to latest service pack and updates. Download and install the latest Direct X. Now put back the card into the computer in another PCI slot. Install the drivers and applications from the installation CD than update your drivers from our support side."
Sounds fun, but I'd rather be listening to music!!!!
Rating:
Summary: review below is from a crank
Review: Junk, absolute junk. Don't even try to complain to Creative. Talk about a bunch of losers. If you have a soundblaster already installed, you might as well reformat to get the new one to work. I am a computer engineer for crying out loud. The soundblaster uninstall does not work, and you can spend forever trying to track down all the files that need to be deleted so that your new card will install correctly, but you will never find them all. EDIT: I decided to up my review to 2 stars because my sound card has been working flawlessly since the install. However, If you have XP, and are replacing an existing Creative sound card with an Audigy, be prepared to reformat. I am one of two guys who sets up everybodys computers at work, install new hardware, software, etc. Everytime somebody has brought me a computer with XP and a creative soundcard already installed and wanted me to install an Audigy, I have had to reformat to get it to work.
Rating: 
Summary: Reformat
Review: Junk, absolute junk. Don't even try to complain to Creative. Talk about a bunch of losers. If you have a soundblaster already installed, you might as well reformat to get the new one to work. I am a computer engineer for crying out loud. The soundblaster uninstall does not work, and you can spend forever trying to track down all the files that need to be deleted so that your new card will install correctly, but you will never find them all. EDIT: I decided to up my review to 2 stars because my sound card has been working flawlessly since the install. However, If you have XP, and are replacing an existing Creative sound card with an Audigy, be prepared to reformat. I am one of two guys who sets up everybodys computers at work, install new hardware, software, etc. Everytime somebody has brought me a computer with XP and a creative soundcard already installed and wanted me to install an Audigy, I have had to reformat to get it to work.
Rating:
Summary: Hyper Threaded Processor Users Beware
Review: The good about this card: It sounds great and has nice inputs. The bad about this card: It constantly crashes my Windows XP Pro box. After much searching I found that Creative has problems with Hyper Threaded or Multi-Processor systems. If you have one AVOID THIS CARD LIKE THE PLAGUE. Creative's idea?? Disable Hyper Threading. My idea?? Buy a different brand of sound card!
Rating:
Summary: Hyper Threaded Processor Users Beware
Review: The good about this card: It sounds great and has nice inputs. The bad about this card: It constantly crashes my Windows XP Pro box. After much searching I found that Creative has problems with Hyper Threaded or Multi-Processor systems. If you have one AVOID THIS CARD LIKE THE PLAGUE. Creative's idea?? Disable Hyper Threading. My idea?? Buy a different brand of sound card!
Rating: 
Summary: Good sound, convenient I/O box, but still has problems
Review: The Good News: The hardware is all first rate. The I/O panel box is a wonderful and convenient. It looks good, and works very good.
The Bad News: Unfortunately, Creative clearly employs freshman software school engineers. In the more than two years that Windows XP has been out, Creative STILL has not figured out how to write compatible software and drivers for XP and SP1. It is maddening and pure frustration should your system crash or freeze after doing the creative installation. Calling Creative for support is useless, hopeless. They are truly helpless. They do not have a clue! If by chance you manage to get the system running, you will find the hardware functions extremely well and the sound is gorgeous. Creative should simply contract out the software engineering to a competant firm and be done with it.
Rating:
Summary: review below is from a crank
Review: the review belowtitled "format" has been placed by a crank who has written the same review for EVERY creative labs product. cleasrly they don't know what they were doing, installed the card or software wrong and now have a grudge.
Rating:
Summary: review below is from a crank
Review: the review belowtitled "format" has been placed by a crank who has written the same review for EVERY creative labs product. cleasrly they don't know what they were doing, installed the card or software wrong and now have a grudge.
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