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Sound driver driving me batty!

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6 replies

by baz

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What can possibly be affecting the driver for the VIA AC 97 Audio Controller (WDM) on my machine?

A few days ago I woke up the computer to find noise and distortion on the sound. No great problem ... I went to Windows Update, installed the latest driver and all was well. But now, every time I turn the computer on, the same problem is back and I have to go through the whole procedure of rolling back and installing the driver from Windows Update again. Weirdly, merely rolling back to the old driver also solves the problem for the session but it returns again on the new boot-up. The problem is evident on the Windows welcome wav so it doesn't seem to be related to any start-up programs. So I'm frankly baffled ... any ideas?

Win XP on Athlon AMD XP 1700+ RAM 384MB

Updated driver: VIA Technologies, Inc 19/08/2003 6.14.1.3880 (Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher)

Rolled back to: Microsoft 01/07/2001 5.1.2535.0 Microsoft Windows Publisher

As stated, either driver works perfectly as long as there is no reboot!

6 replies

by darts32

The VIA Apollo KT133 is a two-chip set, consisting of the VT8363 North Bridge and VT82C686A "Super" South Bridge.

This means the link I provided for the drivers should work. Another one to try is here: http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2

As far as it working and not working after a reboot, that I am not sure

by darts32

It might just be that there is a problem with the on board sound. I would disable the on board sound and go buy a sound card to put in.

by ozi eagle

Hi,
Your motherboard should come with a driver CD. Reinstall the AC97 drivers from this CD.

by baz

Good luck with finding a driver - it's a VT8363 of which the existence seems to be denied by all the suppport sites I've tried!

There's also no CD - if I had one, I'd use it.

What I really want to know is how and why the same driver can work perfectly and then go bananas when the computer is switched off or rebooted. I can't see that as a problem with the driver itslef so what else could possibly have this effect?

by baz

Ok, I've now installed every driver I can find, (including one which made my computer sound like it had been inhaling helium!) and the behaviour is exactly the same for all of them. After the original installation it works perfectly. On the next boot it's back to the raggedy sound. This merely confirms my original suspicion that the problem is not with any of the drivers in themselves but something that is happening in the course of either shutdown or boot to destabilise the installation or affect the sound set up in some way ... I just can't, for the life of me, think what it could be or how it operates.

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