New Computer Recording Woes

[plaguitar]

I just bought a New Dell Computer model # XPS 9100 computer with 8GB of SDRAM and a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCIe sound card, running Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit OS. I have read thru all of your FAQ's and have incorporated the suggested items to try such as updating the dirvers, installing current lame files, etc. I still cannot get Audacity to to record anything. I have several CD's and an extensive Napster library and cannot get the recording function to work at all. I also purchased for my sons HP G-60T laptops with onboard sound cards running Windows 7 Home Edition 64-Bit and cannot get Audacity to work on those either. Since all 3 PC's are running Windows 7 and my old PC running Windows XP Professional (which Audacity works very well on) it appears to me that the common failure point is the Windows 7 64-Bit OS. I have exhausted trying all suggested settings and fixes but having no success. Please help what am I doing wrong?

[steve]

I sympathize - XP was so much more straightforward to set up.

See here for how to access the Sounds settings in the Control Panel: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... trol_Panel
Check that the Bit-Rate, Number of Channels and selected Devices in Audacity Preferences match the settings in the Control Panel ("Edit menu > Preferences > Devices" and "Edit menu > Preferences > Quality")

There are also some addition tips on that wiki page.