Part 1 — Building Around the X-Fi
There are some hardware projects where the interesting part isn’t making an old component work again. The interesting part is finding a use for it that its manufacturer never quite intended.
This is one of those projects.
At its heart is a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Pro — a product originally designed as a PC sound card accompanied by an external control and I/O unit. In this project, however, the X-Fi becomes something closer to a dedicated digital audio processor, with a small computer built specifically around it.
The idea started with a simple question:
What if the computer existed primarily to serve the sound card?
The Core Hardware
The computer is built around a GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2PH, an extremely compact Mini-ITX motherboard based on Intel’s low-power Celeron J1800 platform.
It is hardly an impressive specification by modern PC standards. That is precisely why it works so well here.
There is no need for a powerful processor, discrete graphics card, large storage subsystem or conventional ATX power supply. The computer’s job is relatively modest: provide a Windows XP environment for the X-Fi and its associated software while also allowing the sound card to perform the audio processing for which it was designed.
The system uses an SSD containing Windows XP SP2, together with the appropriate Danile_k X-Fi drivers.
The choice of Windows XP is deliberate. This is not a case of putting a modern operating system on old hardware simply because it happens to run. The operating system is part of the hardware’s identity.
The X-Fi belongs to the Windows XP era.
So does the software ecosystem surrounding it.
Making PCI Fit
The GA-J1800N-D2PH is a Mini-ITX board, while the X-Fi is a conventional PCI card. The physical arrangement therefore presents an immediate problem.
The solution is a 90-degree PCI riser.
Instead of mounting the X-Fi vertically as it would be in a conventional desktop case, the riser allows the card to lie horizontally inside the custom enclosure.
This seemingly small change is important to the entire design. It makes it possible to build a very shallow chassis around the dimensions of the X-Fi’s external unit rather than designing a conventional PC case and trying to fit the audio hardware afterward.
The sound card is therefore not an expansion card that happens to be inside the computer.
It effectively determines the computer’s physical architecture.
The Power Supply Problem
Power is another area where conventional PC hardware doesn’t make much sense.
The system has extremely modest power requirements, so a normal ATX or SFX power supply would be excessive both electrically and physically.
For the current prototype, a PicoPSU is being used.
The long-term goal, however, is to find a small, good-quality OEM-style power supply from the kind of compact Dell, HP or Lenovo office machines that used similarly low-power hardware.
The ideal supply would be physically small, quiet and capable of providing considerably less power than a conventional desktop PSU.
There is little point in putting a large, high-power SFX supply into a computer whose processor was designed to run at only a fraction of the power consumption of a modern desktop CPU.
A custom power supply would certainly be possible, but designing a proper ATX-compliant supply is considerably more work than simply generating the required voltages. Startup sequencing, protection, standby power, PWR_OK, transient behavior and mains safety quickly turn a seemingly simple project into a substantial engineering exercise.
For this build, that effort is better spent elsewhere.
More Than an XP PC
The most interesting feature of the system isn’t actually Windows XP.
It is the way the X-Fi itself is used.
In addition to its normal functions, the sound card can accept a digital signal through its S/PDIF input and perform hardware decoding of Dolby Digital and DTS signals.
That changes the character of the project considerably.
The computer can function as a conventional Windows XP audio machine, but the X-Fi can also act as the processing stage for an external digital audio source.
Conceptually, the signal path can therefore look like:
S/PDIF source → X-Fi → Dolby Digital/DTS decoding → analog multichannel output
The PC becomes a host for a piece of early-2000s PC audio hardware that contains capabilities which are surprisingly relevant to a modern DIY audio system.
It isn’t trying to replace a modern AV receiver.
It is doing something much more specific:
preserving and repurposing a particular piece of PC audio technology as a dedicated appliance.
The Case Is Part of the Project
The enclosure is being built from aluminum, using a combination of bent aluminum sheet and aluminum profiles.
Its dimensions are determined primarily by the X-Fi Platinum Pro external unit.
The computer case underneath has the same width as the external X-Fi box.
The front of the computer uses a black acrylic panel whose width matches the black section of the X-Fi’s front panel. The intention is not to make the two units merely match.
The intention is to make them appear to be one continuous piece of equipment.
From the front, the lower computer should visually continue the X-Fi’s fascia.
That is an important distinction.
This isn’t an old PC placed inside a nice case. The enclosure is being designed as though Creative had originally manufactured the computer as part of the X-Fi system.
The result should look less like a desktop computer and more like an unusual piece of period hi-fi equipment.
Why This Is “Off-Label”
None of the individual components is particularly exotic.
The motherboard is a low-power Mini-ITX board.
The X-Fi is a sound card.
The SSD is an ordinary storage device.
The PicoPSU is a conventional compact PC power solution.
But their combination produces something that none of these components was originally intended to become.
The J1800 is no longer being asked to be a general-purpose PC.
The X-Fi is no longer merely an audio peripheral.
The external Platinum unit is no longer simply a breakout/control box.
Together, they become a small, dedicated Windows XP digital audio appliance.
And that is exactly what makes the project interesting.
The hardware isn’t being preserved simply because it is old.
It is being preserved because, when its original components are rearranged around their particular strengths, they can still do something worth building.
Continue with Part 2
Building a Hi-Fi That Never Existed
The X-Fi computer was only the beginning. The project is now growing into a complete modular audio system inspired by the component hi-fi systems of the 1990s.