I have seen this with multiple Creative cards. I forget what the fix was other than just shutting down and powering back up.
1. Have you tried a different PCI slot on th motherboard?
2. What updates do you have installed on XP?

Guessing the specs to that computer are in your sig?

One of the multiple things i tried was powering down the pc, disconnecting the power plug for a couple of minutes and pressing the power button for several seconds before connecting the power plug again to the pc. (This is supposed to clean the pci enumeration cache, i don't know if it is valid). There is no other available slot in the motherboard and my sig needs updating, because i have transitioned to a new pc for a couple of months now. The motherboard is a Gigabyte Z97x Gaming 5. Both Xp installations are 32bit - Sp3, but are different (one of them is a fully updated Xp Integral Edition). The Rx worked flawlessly on both of them.

Update: I had a really interesting exchange with Microsoft Copilot and the outcome was that the culprit is probably the pci to pcie bridge chip that the Titanium uses, which is problematic when it interacts with a non gen 1 pcie slot. Oftentimes the outcome is what i am experiencing now, when it is used in specific chipset motherboards, such as the Z97, which don't offer the option of a gen 1. pcie slot. Also the Rx didn't expose this behaviour because, according to Copilot, it uses a different, newer pci to pcie bridge chip. I don't know if that is the cause, but it is not irrational.

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-14, 21:49:

Update: I had a really interesting exchange with Microsoft Copilot and the outcome was that the culprit is probably the pci to pcie bridge chip that the Titanium uses, which is problematic when it interacts with a non gen 1 pcie slot. Oftentimes the outcome is what i am experiencing now, when it is used in specific chipset motherboards, such as the Z97, which don't offer the option of a gen 1. pcie slot. Also the Rx didn't expose this behaviour because, according to Copilot, it uses a different, newer pci to pcie bridge chip. I don't know if that is the cause, but it is not irrational.

There is one more step left — Copilot must identify this chip on the board.
And half oh next more step.
Let them explain how PCI-e v.5 resets to v.1 when idle.

Creative drivers do not even support two identical Audigy cards installed in a PC at the same time.
And switching from Audigy to X-Fi in Windows XP often requires reinstalling the system.
Different Creative sound cards have identical driver file names and registry branches.

The pcie slot that the card was installed is a gen 2. and there is no option in the bios to change that.
I did a very thorough registry clean up, trying to get rid of any leftovers from the Audigy.

So what you are saying is that if i try to install any other Creative card i will encounter the same problem? I have ordered a (used of course) Auzentech Prelude to try, so is it possible to face the same situation again? Even if it is a Pci card?

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-15, 15:29:

The pcie slot that the card was installed is a gen 2. and there is no option in the bios to change that.
I did a very thorough registry clean up, trying to get rid of any leftovers from the Audigy.

So what you are saying is that if i try to install any other Creative card i will encounter the same problem? I have ordered a (used of course) Auzentech Prelude to try, so is it possible to face the same situation again? Even if it is a Pci card?

1. Prelude knew how to make sound cards, not some strange ‘sound accelerators’ like Creative.
This is an excellent order, don't you dare cancel it.
2. Problems with Titanium are not related to PCI Express versions.
In the worst case, it is a local incompatibility with this particular motherboard.
But if the driver is installed, then it is definitely a software failure.
PCI-e X-FI are definitely native PCI-e sound cards; there are no transition bridges.

I would try creating a Windows XP recovery image and installing Windows 7, for example.
If everything works fine, then you will need to sort out the drivers.
But in any case, if you ordered Prelude, you will have to wait.
Only X-Fi by Onkyo is better than Prelude X-Fi, but no one liked the price tag even at the time of release.

Update: I am going nuts. I acquired an Auzentech Prelude and exactly the same thing happens! Drivers install correctly, card is properly recognised in device manager, same message with the accompanying apps, so i cannot configure it. The Auzentech is pci, not pcie like the Titanium, tried again both Daniel K' s and Auzen software, no luck whatsoever. If anyone has any suggestions, i am open to anything.

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-22, 03:30:

Update: I am going nuts. I acquired an Auzentech Prelude and exactly the same thing happens! Drivers install correctly, card is properly recognised in device manager, same message with the accompanying apps, so i cannot configure it. The Auzentech is pci, not pcie like the Titanium, tried again both Daniel K' s and Auzen software, no luck whatsoever. If anyone has any suggestions, i am open to anything.

I've had that happen sporadically under Win7 on a Z77 motherboard. I was never able to get to the bottom of that, but my guess is that it might have something to do with the Nvidia HD Audio driver.

If I disabled that in Device Manager, and the X-Fi was the only sound card in the system, the drivers and Creative's apps would (usually) work fine. Might be worth a shot in your case as well.

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-22, 03:30:

If anyone has any suggestions, i am open to anything.

There are probably no other options left except to test sound cards on another computer/motherboard with fresh OS install.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-22, 07:10:

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-22, 03:30:

Update: I am going nuts. I acquired an Auzentech Prelude and exactly the same thing happens! Drivers install correctly, card is properly recognised in device manager, same message with the accompanying apps, so i cannot configure it. The Auzentech is pci, not pcie like the Titanium, tried again both Daniel K' s and Auzen software, no luck whatsoever. If anyone has any suggestions, i am open to anything.

I've had that happen sporadically under Win7 on a Z77 motherboard. I was never able to get to the bottom of that, but my guess is that it might have something to do with the Nvidia HD Audio driver.

If I disabled that in Device Manager, and the X-Fi was the only sound card in the system, the drivers and Creative's apps would (usually) work fine. Might be worth a shot in your case as well.

It was always disabled, cause i never use it, did not even ever installed the Nvidia sound driver. The weird thing is that if you search for it, you see that there are various cases of users having the exact same problem with a Creative card but the ones that found a solution, accomplished it by totally different ways. Some did repeated installations, other powered off and unplugged their systems for a while, i even stumbled upon someone who claimed that he booted from a live Ubuntu disc and after that when he booted again into Windows the problem was fixed! There is no definite pattern of why does that happen and the ones that fixed it did it randomly.

ott wrote on 2026-01-22, 07:31:

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-22, 03:30:

If anyone has any suggestions, i am open to anything.

There are probably no other options left except to test sound cards on another computer/motherboard with fresh OS install.

I know that is not the cards fault. They seem to be working properly, their previous owners didn't face the same problem. Unfortunately the possibility of a fresh os installation is not an option for me cause i have a ton of software and games that would need reinstallation and reconfiguration and various other things that i would have to do again to bring the os to the state that i want it to be. I could try it to another pc with a little fuss but that wouldn't help. Even if the cards worked as intended there (very probable scenario), that would not give an answer as to what i have to do to fix the issue in my current build.

Dimos wrote on 2026-01-22, 12:26:

I even stumbled upon someone who claimed that he booted from a live Ubuntu disc and after that when he booted again into Windows the problem was fixed! There is no definite pattern of why does that happen and the ones that fixed it did it randomly.

Sadly, I can't offer a solution, but I can provide some insight with how the issue manifested on my system.

On the aforementioned Z77 motherboard, I'm using WinXP, Win7, Win10 and Linux Mint. For me, the X-Fi issue only happened under Win7. When I first encountered it, I booted back to Win10 (which used the same DanielK drivers as Win7) and there were no problems with the card. I then booted into WinXP, which used the older 2.17.0008 driver, and it had no problems either. Only Win7 was ever affected on that system, so it must have been software related in some way. Disabling Nvidia's HD Audio device and then reinstalling DanielK's driver pack solved it for me, but your circumstances seem to be different.

Does anybody know which are the latest Pax drivers for the X Fi Titanium or the Auzentech Prelude and where i could download them? I didn't know about their existence until now and i might give them a try, hoping they might solve my problem.