WinXP Pro AO751h realtek Audio trouble

Hi Guys,

I'm hoping someone can give me the answer to this one, as I've had a heck of a time this week trying to get my new 751h WinXPPro'ed as it were.

Having wiped the default XPHome that was on it, I installed using WinXPSP3 install disc, and it's as if the Realtek audio chip is non existent. It doesn't show up in Device Manager, and consequently running the setup of the both Realtek's, Acer's and the Apps & Drivers disc (I burnt prior to wiping XPHome) audio driver results in no audio.

Control Panel, Sounds & Audio devices just shows a No Audio Device message.

I've tried a reinstall (to no avail), I've attempting using the burnt Reinstallation discs as well (for some reason it gets stuck on the reboot the with WinXP logo + Please wait...), and still nothing (I even took a DriveImageXML snapshot of the machine as shipped, but unfortunately the reimage resulted in a non bootable drive for some "£$"£%£ reason).

The only thing that's confirmed that the audio is totally gone on the machine, is I've now dropped a Win7 install and straight out of the box, I've got audio again.

I don't want to be forced to go with Win7 as I find it too slow - anyone have any hints on what exactly I'm missing?

(Incidently the only other thing I found going through the process of reinstallation of all the Acer drivers, was the Intel Chipset one was also a killer to the machine).

*Any* hints appreciated,

Marcus

 

Actually as a follow on to above, there was one thing, and that was after going through all the drivers, the only thing I couldn't eradicate out of Device Manager was a single PCI Device item (but I assume that might be related to the Intel Chipset driver pack?).

 

Ok.

I figured it out.

There's an undocumented thing you have to do post Realteak Audio Codec driver install, from a Microsoft TechNet note (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... d848bca4f8), you have to go into the RealTek driver folder\MSHDQFE\Win2K_XP\us and perform the below:

KB888111 can be installed on top of SP3. Follow the instructions below.

1) Use 7-zip or WinRAR to extract
2) Extract KB888111XPSP2.exe to a folder such as C:\KB888111XPSP2
3) Open Device Manager, search for the Unknown PCI device
4) Right click on the Unknown PCI device to update the driver
5) Point the driver path to this C:\KB888111XPSP2\commonfiles\

It should be able to update. Install the audio driver on your machine. Good luck!
Also read these threads for more information.
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/Sho ... &SiteID=17
&
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/Sho ... &SiteID=17

 

I find it very odd that you find Win 7 slower than XP.
I personally have found it faster on every machine I've tried it on. All the way down to a 1.0ghz pentium m with 512 ram and 30 gig hd.

 

I suppose slower is the wrong word for it, just less snappy.

Although the tweaks that can be made to bring it back 'bare' as it were do help, it still never quite gets all the way back to what you can do with a trimmed WinXP setup I've found... ???

 

I've found for my use, that Vista or 7 works better. Vista is slow as a dog on this machine though.
I use my computer for DJ'ing and the XP audio drivers just seem to distort at anything above the stock EQ settings. No such problem with Vista or 7.
Sometimes I've found that on XP, things like not installing the chipset driver made it so the computer couldn't install the other devices. Not sure if its the same for you