I have had this X-Fi Snap/Crackle/Pop issue for a few weeks now. It started when I got my 2nd 8800 GTS and an additional 2GB of RAM. The X-Fi card worked great prior to getting these two new pieces of hardware. Then the SCP started happening. My best two leads was that the X-Fi card didn't play nice with 4GB of RAM nor the NForce 4 chipset. After tons of forum research and trying a bunch of possible solutions I have come down to my final try.

My Asus MOBO has a beta bios (1405) that may have the fix for this SCP issue. Since Asus does not release bios information on betas, I am going off of what other people had mentioned about the fixes in this beta bios. I flashed the bios last night and have reimaged my C drive so I know that currently everything is working correctly. I have created a Complete PC Backup image this morning. I will install the X-Fi sound card tonight and see if my SCP issue is gone. If nothing else I can go back to my backup image and try something else.

I will update this thread with the results this evening.

My last PC was almost that exact same config. I had a WD Raptor instead of a WD 250, 2 8800 GTXs instead of 2 GTSs and 4GB Corsair 3500LL instead of the 3200 with an Enermax Liberty 620. Loaded the 1405 BIOS, sounded like a bowl of rice crispies. I hope you have better luck.

I installed my X-Fi card Friday night with the Creative Beta Drivers and found out that the SCP was still there. Sounds like Creative hasn't fix their issue yet.

In a prior troubleshooting attempt, I had removed 2 of the 4 GB of memory and it stopped the SCP issue. I might have to try that in the near future.

I've got a problem with Xtreme Gamer and nForce4 and I find new solution that finally works for me. I use Windows XP SP3, not Vista, but I think a problem and a solution are same.


X-Fi and nForce4 SCP problem solution (for Google) :

Go to Windows hardware manager, find disk controllers folder, look for "NVIDIA SATA" or something like that. Change driver to "standard PCI IDE" for each NVIDIA SATA controller, reboot. I get rid of crackling!

Also, this may be not only drivers, but also latest beta BIOS for my motherboard... Only latest BIOS with NVIDIA SATA drivers does not solve problem, anyway.