A lesson on why it’s important to update drivers

I’ve been repurposing an older notebook to become a media computer for the past couple of days.  Since it’s a notebook the sound is stereo only, and that’s just not going to cut it.  So I went out and bought a Creative Labs X-Fi USB at Best Buy for about 60 bucks.  Turns out Amazon has it for $40, but Best Buy is down the street and I didn’t have to wait.

Plugged it in and after a little fidgeting got it outputting through an optical digital connection to my receiver.  Then I noticed the problem.  Movies had about a half second delay.  Not a good situation since it made it seem like I was watching everything dubbed.  Fortunately it was an easy fix.  The drivers on the CD were from ’07.  A quick visit to Creative’s website and a fresh set of drivers were downloaded and installed and the delay was gone.

So I’ve got some movies to watch…