I recently formatted my hard drive and re-installed Windows XP Pro (NTFS) using "Standard PC" mode. Now all my PCI and AGP devices use their own IRQ's and DMA's. No forced hardware or sharing.
 
I did all the windows updates and my system runs awesome. Infact, my hard drive (WD Caviar 30Gig ATA100 7200rpm) bursts around 82 - 83 mbps with HD Tach 2.61 and my motherboard is a VIA Apollo KT133, Asus A7V (PCB rev 1.02) using bios 1009/FXD from Braziliantech.
 
My video card (GeForce2 GTS 32MB) also runs awesome. 3630 3dmarks with 3DMark2001 and 98.4 fps with Quake3 timedemo1 at 1024x768x32, everything maxed including sounds. UnReal Tournament is so smooth and same with Return to Castle Wolfenstein and CodeName: OutBreak (Venom) and MDK2.
 
 
Now here's were I've had problems. I have the first, originally released SB Live (full retail; with I/O card). I use its digital DIN interface to hook up to my Cambridge FPS2000 speaker system. I enable "Digital Output Only" feature. My sound card is slightly more than 3 years old now. It uses IRQ 5 and doesn't share it with anything.
 
When I installed the latest Creative Labs drivers from their web site, the Surround Mixer sometimes only gets 2 speakers working even though I have it set to 4 speaker setup. Also, when I run movie trailers, I get popping, crackling and scratching. Just yucky!!! When I play games, same thing, yucky but all 4 speakers work for gaming and movie trailers. Even Microsoft's DirectX testing program sounds yucky!!!
 
Now, when I roll back to the original Windows XP Pro drivers and only install the windos updates for my SB Live, movie trailers sound perfectly clear, all 4 speakers works fine. When I game, they all sound fine EXCEPT for CodeName: OutBreak (Venom). It crackles at times, yuck!!! Microsoft's DirectX testing program sounds just fine. Only downside, Civiliation III only uses 2 speakers, instead of 4 and OutBreak pops and crackles from time to time.
 
 
My friend just bought a SB Live 5.1 (OEM / Value) and he uses the analog connectors to his 4 speaker system. He installed the Creative Labs drivers from their web site and he says they work fine. He runs Windows XP Pro (NTFS) using "Standard PC" mode just like me.
 
 
My PCI Latency is defaulted to 32.
 
Nothing is over-clocked in my system.
 
 
Does it sound like my old SB Live (full retail) is just out of date and needs to be replaced?
 
Or did Creative do a crappy job with their SB Live driver support?
 
What can I do to remedy this?