Audio problems in vista

[trueman]

For some reason my audio stops working in Vista and I have to reboot to restore it.
I thought it was just a WMP 11 problem but audio doesnt work at all no matter what media player I use and even th windows default sounds stop working.
Once I reboot though everything is fine again...for awhile anyway.

[mats.hogberg]

Surely some audio card driver problem. Check for updated Vista drivers for your sound card.

/Mats

[trueman]

My Soundblaster live card is no longer supported so I cant get Vista drivers for it and it didnt work with vista. So I had to remove it and use my onboard sound (Soundmax intergrated audio) The drivers are the most recent I can get but Im still having problems.

[pfh]

Only thing Vista doesn't do is EAX, but as long as you've gone back to integrated you might also need to update the mobo drivers as well.

[trueman]

That would be great if there were vista drivers for the mobo. I cant beleive how many drivers there ARENT available for Vista. Im seriously considering wiping Vista for now and going back to XP for another year or so.

[JohnnyMalaria]

You have stumbled across Vista's Achilles' heel:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1627412#1627412

The audio side of things in Vista has been changed dramatically. Pre-Vista soundcard drivers won't work and, if you happen to manage to get them to install in the first place, you will run into all sorts of problems. (This doesn't affect ASIO etc, but does affect all standard "WDM" drivers).

If your SoundMAX drivers aren't Vista-specific, you will have problems.

I've had to abandon my prefered soundcard with Vista and make do with the integrated Intel cr@p on my mobo.

However, according to this:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=591592&SiteID=17 (read the most recent posts near the bottom)

Vista drivers ARE available for integrated SoundMAX.....

Goto:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=...&GetDown=false

[mats.hogberg]

You have stumbled across Vista's Achilles' heel:

One of. Seems like Vista's a centipede in this respect! For once, I kept from my usual early adopter behaviour.

/Mats

[trueman]

Thanks for the info Johnny but Im just not sure what the link to the Realtek Drivers has to do with my Soundmax onboard audio.

Can I use those drivers instead?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Can I use those drivers instead?

According to the post at the bottom of:

http://forums.windowsvistamagazine.com/forums/1991/ShowThread.aspx

it seems they may work.

[trueman]

Ok thanks for that. I just have a small problem, Im not sure how to install these drivers. I ran the setup file and it has obviously installed something as I can see the realtek folder in my prog folder. However If i go into device manager and choose to update driver manually If I choose to update from a location on my pc and point to the realtek folder I get a message that the drivers are already up to date. So Im not sure if the realtek drivers are installed or not.