I may just go with the xonar DG 5.1 soundcard its more modern but asus has better support and I wouldnt run into the sound issues that older soundblasters had

Obvious question: what do you want/expect from your computer's sound capabilities?

The more modern you go, the less difference it makes outside of pro audio or audiophile circles, but that Dimension 4550 is old enough for onboard audio to be pretty crappy, and old enough you might want to run DOS or Win9x, in which case you're in a whole different ballgame and it's compatibility, not SNR or advanced EAX options that make the difference.

dionb wrote:

Obvious question: what do you want/expect from your computer's sound capabilities?

The more modern you go, the less difference it makes outside of pro audio or audiophile circles, but that Dimension 4550 is old enough for onboard audio to be pretty crappy, and old enough you might want to run DOS or Win9x, in which case you're in a whole different ballgame and it's compatibility, not SNR or advanced EAX options that make the difference.

I run mostly older windows games like morrowind, doom 3, diablo, arcanum etc games that have compatibility issues with modern games, if I want to rund dos games Ill run dosbox on it.

I already a refurbished bfg 6600gt for it so Im going for early to mid 2000's with older direct x games

The Creative cards have hardware acceleration, so they do actually help with performance and sound WAAAAAAAY better compared to whatever trash onboard audio codec the 4550 has built in.

Onboard audio didn't start getting better until just a few years ago.

I've been running Sound Blaster cards since early PCI days. Never once had an issue except for once and then I just had to move the card to a different slot.

Where are you located?

cyclone3d wrote:

The Creative cards have hardware acceleration, so they do actually help with performance and sound WAAAAAAAY better compared to […]
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The Creative cards have hardware acceleration, so they do actually help with performance and sound WAAAAAAAY better compared to whatever trash onboard audio codec the 4550 has built in.

Onboard audio didn't start getting better until just a few years ago.

I've been running Sound Blaster cards since early PCI days. Never once had an issue except for once and then I just had to move the card to a different slot.

Where are you located?

the second pci slot I tried moving it to other ones and even without the drivers installed I got static, its the card
I guess thats what I get for buying one that was only 16.50

luckly new egg still has the card I may go for the xonar dg though

I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS myself and do not have the mentioned symptoms, the scratch on the back could cause all sorts of issues with that card, I would just try and get another as they are actually pretty good cards and as you said to try and get a refund for the bad card.