Hotrodding the X-Fi: A Layman's Guide (No 56k) - Page 56

Yeah, advice use a dremel to cut off the legs!!! Then remove with soldering iron. This will be easier, if only I knew from the start. Now I'm trying to trace the tracks. It still can be saved.

MrDerrick: Yeah it can be saved, just find out where it connects to.
Dremeling off the legs could work but why not just a mini sidecutter as has been shown several times in this thread? Personally I wouldnt trust the steadyness of my hands to cut off legs that tiny using an electric rotating blade..

ironeissna: Sorry to hear about that, but you must have done something wrong if you ruined 6 out of 8 connectors while replacing 1 opamp, and others including myself have replaced all 5 opamps (some of them several times) and have had no problems at all with connectors coming loose. I'm curious how you went about removing the opamp. If you took with it all those connectors, my first thought is you probably tried to pull up the opamp while trying to melt the tin meanwhile, maybe while using some leverage to press the opamp up?

I dont see how this could happen with first cutting off the opamp with sidecutters and then using copperwick to clean up the connectors. Not even in one out of 100 tries. I'll agree with you it's easy enough to destroy this board, but mostly by doing things the wrong way.

On the contrary: it's VERY easy, provided you know what you're doing. F.i.: I wouldn't use a dremel to cut the legs: the dust you get is conductive, you don't want that in your PC.
Simplest way to do it: cut of the legs of the opamp on one side. I used an old Stanley knife: no mess to remove from the PCB afterwards. Bend the opamp upwards, remove the parts with braid. Lay the new opamp in place, and secure it with some tape. Solder half the legs, remove the tape and solder the remaining ones. The cap is even simpler as it only has 2 legs.

For removal of parts I suggest using a powerful iron: if you apply force while the soldering is too cold, you'll wreck the board (as you've demonstrated). A big iron will allow you to work faster: the tip is big enough to touch all legs on one side at the same time. Less time on the board means less heat buildup in the remaining parts on the PCB, which is always a good thing.

My 4562's for the back channel came in, all opamps replaced now:

1xAD8599 for line-in
1xAD8599 for L+R out
2xLM4562 for L+R rear
1xAD8066 for subwoofer (I use 5.1 not 7.1 so its irrelevant that the side channels are on different opamps)



It may seem a bit random matchup but its not the AD8599 for the line-in and main outs due to their exceptional detail and transparancy, the 4562's in the back because i can swap between 8599 and 4562's by a simple cable switch, and 8066 for sub cause I read good things abouts its deep bass response. The system is used in 2.1 most of the time, for music, and 5.1 mode for movies and sometimes for music (rare).

I'm still undecided what to do with the other coupling capacitors, either remove or replace. Putting all nonpolar blackgates there would get fairly expensive especially if shorting them would work even better. However I did have some problems with the main line-out which I don't think are caused by shorting the caps but i'm not entirely sure either..
I asked before but not much response: is everyone able to get a green light from RMAA right away without hassle, or are there more people besides me and one or two who mentioned it, that had trouble getting a clean signal on peak output levels, such as RMAA requires. Especially from people who shorted the coupling caps I'd like to hear this.

I was told using different amps would yeild mixed results as some amps respond differently at different levels so they may sound louder or less then the others at set levels. So I was told. How does it sound?
The 2227's also have a great bass response. Do you guys not have the room to just put sockets in there instead so you can try whatever amps you want.

95%+ of my use is for music which tends to be just 2 channels. Using different opamps may compromise the levels of the surround system (though I doubt the difference will be very significant), but for me thats of secondary importance. Besides you can set the relative volume of every speaker in the THX console anyway (or on the amp. this 'calibration' should be done either way unless you sit right in the center of all speakers). I preferred the ability to switch over having the most pure surround configuration. In my system there are other much more realistic reasons why I need to attenuate certain speakers over others to get a balanced sound, so for me this is no problem.

As for sockets, anything is doable i guess, its a small surface though so itd be hard to just put on any socket, but i'm sure soic-to-socket thingies exist.

MY eyes are bad, do you have any idea where it might go to?
http://img471.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xfieh9.jpg
This image was posted way back in the thread.
I'm guessing it would be one of the 3 SMDs?

EDIT:
A picture to show which ones I mean.

Best view would be without the opamp in place. can't say from the picture really. macro-photos and magnifying glasses can help, best would be if someone use a multimeter on those points to see which it connects to. I had mine out enough for today but maybe someone else can? else I'll try to look for you next time i open up the pc

Ok I took a quick look

According to my multimeter, in the picture you marked, the point(s) marked with '1' appears to connect to the connector thats missing on your PCB.

Hope that helps

Has anyone attempted to mod the front panel box that comes with the X-fi platinum yet? I do wonder how it stacks up to different amps.

After some pondering I recapped the surround coupling minus the subwoofer. The bigger size of the blackates becomes more of a problem as you replace more of them. To prevent having to use long bended legs on the caps I put the other 4 on the backside of the card (each lm4562 opamp having 2 caps on front and 2 on the back).



Now it's time for me to find a new project to mess with, this one is about as pimped up as I can think of, save a total recapping (which wouldnt be that much more work now maybe some rainy bored day). It's been a good practice for soldering/desoldering

what is a USB DAC ?

a Digital to Analog converter with USB connection maybe

i am using x-fi front panel to plug my headphone ..,is replace the main op amp can improve the sound from front panel ? or any another op amp should i replace ?

I put in an unmodified Xtrememusic in my computer to have some comparing before I mod that too.

First thing I note that the bass doesn't go so low and it isn't so enjoyable, also a bit boomy in some places. Also those great little nuances in music are gone. I'm not sure about this but I can hear some hissing in vocal parts in songs. With LM4562 the singer sounds so much better and natural. Background hiss is also much more noticeable.

For example Kraftwerk sounds so lame. It doesn't have that foot tapping drive.

I only used AKG K701 to do the compare because I have listened mostly with these.