[Prophet]

So I had this Acer rig lying around. It was a high time to do an OS reinstall. It didn't come with any driver CD or anything else useful like that. Just a pre installed OS with needed drivers. Which of course got wiped out down to the deepest levels of hell, hopefully.

I expect that the audio drivers might be the hardest ones to find after OS install. I'm not sure yet if I was right. After 3 hours of switching between my old computer and this one I finally got it online. Acers drivers support SUCKS. I'm still not sure what it was preventing me getting online anyway. But I got that sorted out. And everythin else is going on smoothly enough.


But I'm not getting sound! Device manager shows the infamous yellow smudge on the Realtek high definition audio device. Properties shows me the driver is corrupted or missing, and I'm not geeting the little speaker in my system tray. I have tried the drivers from Acers site. And I have tried the drivers from Realteks site. Same result, that is nothing.

So after three hours of work to get this online and two hours combing the net on audio problems, I'm getting a bit tired. Does anybody have any idea what might be going on?

[jr2]

Use these if possible:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/

And what exactly is your Acer model #?

[Prophet]

Like I said, I tried the ones on Realteks site. Dey aint working. They install just fine like a good obidient driver should, but don't really seem to be doing anything.

And the rig is Acer Aspire E380. The driver the Acer site gives for this model is also no good...

[BloodEagle]

As much as I hate to suggest it. You could always buy a $10.00 sound card.

[Prophet]

Well it would be driving 60 clicks for a shop that might have them (I happen to live in a void where computer shops don't exist). Or mailordering, in which case it would take 3-5 days excluding weekends. The onboard sound ain't so hot, so I have been toying with the idea of getting a new card.

But the problem is: WTF is wrong!? I like playing with computers, but I hate it when they start playing with me. I've been hitting the internet hard on this quest to find a solution, but no luck so far. Although there are numerous creative solutions to problems vaguely similar to mine.

My hope now is to find a mind with experience, or enough creativity to solve this bugger.

[Herra Tohtori]

Does the PC produce sound when you're using a Linux Live[installation]CD of your choice?

That would at least cut out the possibility of hardware malfunction in the sound circuits... although based on my limited knowledge, I suspect that if an onboard sound circuit is damaged the MOBO itself wouldn't work or would at least be unstable or somesuch.

Heh, if it works you could always just make it a Linux box. Would be kinda cool to have a PC that is easier to use properly with Linux than Windows... Ah the irony.

[Prophet]

Har har har.

I don't have Linux handy... And sound device getting destroyed during a simple OS reinstall would be just so rotten luck I would throw up...
But I just recently acknowledged that as a possibility. I've been trying a lot of drivers. Though they have all been similar Realtek .exe's, they have all failed to install properly. So claims the rig.

This simply won't do! I can't listen to motivational music so my schoolwork will go to hell. And I'm already badly behind schedule.

[jr2]

Umm... do you have the latest mobo chipset drivers already installed?

EDIT: Can you get CPU-Z (see my sig) and let me know the make & model of your motherboard?

[Prophet]

Yah... Though they too are from Acer site, I remain confident they are what they're supposed to (ish).

I guess that would however also explain why none of the gazillion audio drivers install properly. Right?

[jr2]

See my EDIT above... what's your mobo make / model?

If the chipset drivers aren't installed right, that would prevent audio drivers from installing... try uninstalling the audio drivers, uninstalling the chipset drivers, and then re-installing latest chipset, then audio.  Be sure to pay attention to irritating little details like "you must restart and let windows re-install its drivers before installing chipset drivers again"... I get that crap on mine,  PITA, but if you do it right, it leaves you alone.

[Jeff Vader]

That is some awful customer care if they didn't deliver a driver CD with the computer. I just did a complete reinstall of XP on my laptop last weekend (and it only took 8 hours if you count the update hustle and some antivirus program issues). My rig came with a clearly named Notebook Driver CD that also had an automatic installation option. Everything, including the on-board sound circuit worked perfectly. And I too have the Realtek audio device.

Though I did get some funky error the first time, when installing the drivers. The brave XP intervened with its own suggestions for dealing with new devices and I failed to stop it before it messed the thing up. Luckily I was able to cripple it when reinstalling the drivers. After that, success!

[Prophet]

Theres part of the CPU-Z results...

I'll see what can be found on the chipset issue... I'm loosing faith in Acers ability to provide good software.

Code: [Select]

-------------------------
  CPU-Z version 1.41
-------------------------

Processors Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 2

Processor 0
    -- Core 0
        -- Thread 0
    -- Core 1
        -- Thread 0


Processors Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 2
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Codename Windsor
Specification AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
Package Socket AM2 (940)
CPUID F.B.2
Extended CPUID F.4B
Brand ID 4
Core Stepping BH-F2
Technology 90 nm
Core Speed 2009.0 MHz (10.0 x 200.9 MHz)
HT Link speed 1004.5 MHz
Stock frequency 2000 MHz
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, x86-64
L1 Data cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 2 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
max FID 10.0x
max VID 1.400 V
Features XD, VT
K8 Thermal sensor yes
K8 Revision ID 5.2
Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 0
Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 1
Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 2
Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 3




Chipset
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Northbridge NVIDIA MCP61 rev. A1
Southbridge NVIDIA MCP61 rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 1024 MBytes
Memory Frequency 251.1 MHz (CPU/8)
CAS# 4.0
RAS# to CAS# 4
RAS# Precharge 4
Cycle Time (tRAS) 12
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 17
Command Rate 1T


Memory SPD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIMM #1

General
Memory type DDR2
Module format Regular UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Apacer Technology (7F7A000000000000)
Size 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC2-4300 (266 MHz)
Part number
Manufacturing date Week 43/Year 06

Attributes
Number of banks 1
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Nominal Voltage 1.80 Volts
EPP no
XMP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 200 266 266
CAS# 3.0 4.0 5.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 3 4 4
RAS# Precharge 3 4 4
TRAS 9 12 12
TRC 12 16 16

DIMM #2

General
Memory type DDR2
Module format Regular UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Apacer Technology (7F7A000000000000)
Size 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC2-4300 (266 MHz)
Part number
Manufacturing date Week 43/Year 06

Attributes
Number of banks 1
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Nominal Voltage 1.80 Volts
EPP no
XMP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 200 266 266
CAS# 3.0 4.0 5.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 3 4 4
RAS# Precharge 3 4 4
TRAS 9 12 12
TRC 12 16 16

Dump Module #1
      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
00   80 08 08 0E 0A 60 40 00 05 3D 50 00 82 08 00 00
10   0C 04 38 00 02 00 01 3D 50 50 60 3C 1E 3C 2D 80
20   25 37 10 22 3C 1E 1E 00 00 3C 69 80 1E 28 00 51
30   78 3E 2E 1E 1E 24 17 34 1E 20 00 00 00 00 11 CF
40   7F 7A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 43 00
60   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
70   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
80   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
90   57 4F 36 30 30 32 30 37 35 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF
A0   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
B0   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
C0   30 31 79 30 30 30 FF FF 36 41 37 39 54 47 30 37
D0   07 52 FF FF 02 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
E0   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
F0   06 10 23 FF 10 03 03 FF 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 88


Dump Module #2
      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
00   80 08 08 0E 0A 60 40 00 05 3D 50 00 82 08 00 00
10   0C 04 38 00 02 00 01 3D 50 50 60 3C 1E 3C 2D 80
20   25 37 10 22 3C 1E 1E 00 00 3C 69 80 1E 28 00 51
30   78 3E 2E 1E 1E 24 17 34 1E 20 00 00 00 00 11 CF
40   7F 7A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 43 00
60   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
70   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
80   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
90   57 4F 36 30 30 32 30 37 35 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF
A0   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
B0   FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
C0   30 31 76 30 30 30 FF FF 36 41 37 39 54 47 30 37
D0   07 52 FF FF 02 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
E0   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
F0   06 10 23 FF 09 52 22 FF 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 88


Monitoring
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mainboard Model EM61SM/EM61PM (0x35E - 0x20210C4D)

LPCIO
-----------------------------------------------------
Vendor ITE
Vendor ID 0x90
Chip ID 0x8726
Revision ID 0x1
Config Mode I/O address 0x2E

Dump config mode register space, LDN = 0x4
      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
00   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
10   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20   87 26 01 D1 00 41 D0 01 00 08 81 00 40 00 00 00
30   01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
40   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
60   02 90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
70   00 02 00 00 04 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00


Snipped majorlly...



@Lobo:
Sometimes they do that. If the rig is some pos corporate bundle back like this, they expect the customer to make a recovery disk from the pre installed bloatware filled OS the rig shipped with...

[jr2]

Hmm, I meant I just need this info:

[Prophet]

Well there you have it. Again.

Unless someone comes up with a bright idea, I'm giving up a cuttin my wrists with a chainsaw. This pile-o-crap aint working. I wish I'd found out whats wrong. Might be the chip that's broken. Might be the chipset that's scewered, somehow. Might be that I've been installing wrong audio drivers all day.

All I can say for certain is that this sucks royally.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Huggybaby]

This is surely a driver problem, since a hardware problem like this is very rare. I have Realtek also with a similar mobo.
It shouldn't matter whether you use the acer realtek driver or the realtek realtek driver, but get the acer one working first, in case it has been customized.

Is this your machine?
http://www.superwarehouse.com/Acer_Aspire_E380_Mini_Tower_Desktop/ASE380-UD420A/ps/1499863

Did you keep Vista? Is it possible to install a driver from the wrong OS?

Is your onboard sound still enabled in the bios?

Are you using these chipset drivers?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf400_winVista_15.01G.html

Do you only have one yellow exclamation point in device manager? (it's called a "bang")

If you boot into safe mode and go into device manager, do you see more than one audio device installed? (Don't know if this is applicable to Vista)

Either way, delete them all then reboot and be sure to select drivers manually from the list when new hardware is detected, don't let Windows do it automatically.

Just curious, you have integrated video, but are you able to use these?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_163.69.html

[Herra Tohtori]

Is your onboard sound still enabled in the bios?

That's a good point... If you installed a new BIOS could it have different default settings regarding the onboard sound card?

[Tyrian]

First off, are you have you installed XP or Vista?  I'm assuming it's XP, because you stated the system was older.

Realtek, eh?  I had the exact same problem you're having when I did an OS reinstall on my Asus laptop.  You're actually missing a piece of software called the UAA audio driver.  What you need to do is uninstall whatever sound drivers you have on there currently.  Next, go here.  It's the download link to the XP version of the UAA driver.  I know it comes from Asus, but the driver was written by Microsoft, so it's standardized across PC's.  Once you have installed the UAA driver, reboot if you need to, then install the actual sound card drivers.  Reboot again if needed, and set your sound options in the Control Panel.  That should do it.

Here's why:  M$ is pushing this universal audio interface standard called UAA.  The UAA software sits between the hardware and the actual sound card drivers from Realtek.  So, the UAA interfaces with your hardware, passes the data to the Realtek drivers, then outputs sound.  Unfortunately, almost no one knows about the UAA driver and M$ has been incredibly poor about distributing it with systems.  (And when I say poor, I mean poor.  You can't even get the UAA driver off their website.)  So that's why most sound card driver installs go so badly nowadays.

NOTE:  After following these steps, you might get a nag screen at bootup saying that Windows has detected new hardware.  This is probably Windows picking up your dial up modem, which for some reason M$ decided to tie to the UAA drivers...   To get rid of it, you'll need to grab the drivers for that too.

[jr2]

Ya, ok, after you get done with Tyrian's advice (or before, w/e), do double-check that its not some silly thing such as your WAV output being muted in the Volume Control (double-click the speaker icon in the system tray, and make sure all sliders / mute buttons are set correctly)... try muting and then unmuting the sound (sounds crazy, but that worked for me once).  Also, make sure you don't have an option labeled "Digital Output Only" checked, as IIRC, that sends all audio to the SPDIF output (instead of the normal mini jacks).

[Prophet]

Is this your machine?
http://www.superwarehouse.com/Acer_Aspire_E380_Mini_Tower_Desktop/ASE380-UD420A/ps/1499863

Nay. I think there is a couple of different kind of E380. Mine's crappier than that.

Did you keep Vista? Is it possible to install a driver from the wrong OS?

It came with XP media center. Now I installed XP professional SP2. Pretty identical, so I doubt that's it.

Is your onboard sound still enabled in the bios?

Are you using these chipset drivers?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf400_winVista_15.01G.html

Do you only have one yellow exclamation point in device manager? (it's called a "bang")

If it were disabled in BIOS would the rig still detect it all right at startup? Coz' it does.
Those drivers are for Vista...
Yes, only one "bang". Check attachment...

If you boot into safe mode and go into device manager, do you see more than one audio device installed? (Don't know if this is applicable to Vista)

Either way, delete them all then reboot and be sure to select drivers manually from the list when new hardware is detected, don't let Windows do it automatically.

Haven't tried that yet...

@Tyrian:
I tried that. Didn't work. No change at all...




One last thing. I keep getting this annoying "Generic host process errors" all the time. It's supposed to be a common problem and not affect anything really. So that can't be the cause. Weird thing is that I installed the hotfix from microsoft, and I still get the error...

[attachment deleted by admin]

[jr2]

Acer Aspire E380: (select Desktop > Aspire E380)

http://www.acerpanam.com/flex/acerdrivers/bin/drivers.html?CFID=3789055&CFTOKEN=66865926

The drivers are for Vista.  Problem.... hmm.  Have to see if you can get those drivers for XP.  Best to do that from the various manufacturers... if you can find them.  I'm betting that you installed chipset drivers designed for Vista, right?