Review on 💎 Diamond XtremeSound PCI 7.1 Channels 16 bit Sound Card - Premium Audio Experience for Your PC by Randy Perry

I received this card for a client computer I just upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 (see specs below) and integrated sound cards. The driver built into the HP Compaq DC 7700 does not support drivers for Windows 7. Having owned a few of these cards I knew what I was getting into when I got the card, although physically installing the card is easy enough to get a driver for Installing Windows Vista and 7 is not as simple as plug and play. However, once installed, it works like a champ. Thanks to another commenter named Mr. Timothy Egan who wrote most of the writing (I've installed this card on other PCs before, more or less following his installation guide with Windows 7 drivers, but too lazy to write installation instructions) , I've changed Timothy's installation instructions, makes it a little different. 1) If your PC has older audio drivers, please uninstall them before installing this card. If not, go to step 2.2) Turn off the computer and install the card in a free PCI slot. 3) Start your computer. According to the manual, the old sound card should be deactivated in the BIOS. I did not do it. You can manually uninstall old sound card drivers in Device Manager. (I personally didn't have to do any of these steps, but it can be done as an extra precaution.) 4) After Windows restarts and starts, it will automatically attempt to install the standard Windows audio drivers. If you can stop the installation. I wasn't fast enough for this, but even then Windows couldn't find a driver for the card. If for some reason it detects these generic drivers, uninstall them. 5) If installing for Windows XP, just install from the installation CD that comes with the card, then reboot your computer and you'll be fine. However, if you are installing for Windows Vista or 7, continue with step 6 of this guide. 6) If you are installing for Windows Vista or Windows 7, take the supplied installation CD and throw it in the trash (it only contains 32-bit drivers for Windows XP and will not install on Windows Vista or 7). 7) Go to Diamond website and download the latest drivers for Win7 here (make sure you download the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit drivers): diamondmm dot com / XS71 dot php (insert Add the relevant [ .] information to the web browser for Diamond website or just search) 8) Go to their support and download link and enter the model number of your sound card (XS71). 9) Once downloaded, the drivers will be zipped, so unzip them to your desktop. 10) Navigate to the extracted Diamond driver folder and click on the .EXE file to begin installing the driver. 11) Reboot the system after installation. And you must be ready to go. Despite the cumbersome driver installation, a working sound card works fine in Windows Vista or Windows 7. Computer specifications: HP Compaq dc7700 Convertible Minitower Intel Core Duo 2 2.66 GHz processor 4 GB DDR21 GB NIC (built-in) Intel 3000 graphics (integrated - not used) Antec Green 500 W Power EVGA 2 GB GTX 550 TI graphics card (external card) 250 GB hard disk 3.5 floppy disk drive 1 DVD/CD Lightscribe Writer Windows 7 Professional SP1 (64-bit)