How to reinitialize audio card drivers without having to restart?

[fuzzybabybunny]

One problem that I've been consistently having with my Creative X-Fi Gamer and the only Windows 7 drivers available to it is that the sound just stops working randomly and I have to do a whole system restart to get it going again.

Sometimes when I have some video issues I just disable and re-enable the video card drivers from the device manager, no restart required, so I tried it with my sound card driver, but when doing so the device manager says I have to restart for the changes to take effect.

Is there any way to disable and re-initialize the sound card drivers in Win7 without having to do a restart?

 

[M0RPH]

My Audigy occasionally stops working after the computer comes out of sleep. I found I can go to sound in control panel and mess with the properties of the audio device there, and it will start working again. Select the audio output device and click configure and then the test button, or you can go into properties and there's another test button there. If that doesn't work you can also try disabling and enabling the device there.

This is in Vista but the sound control panel in W7 should be the same.

 

[ViRGE]

Funny enough, I'm having the same problem with Win7 and my XtremeMusic. It must be the drivers.

Anyhow, just disable and re-enable your primary playback device in the Sound control panel. That seems to do the trick.

 

[arj-3000]

Hi! Everyone,
Hope this will help you.
I'm using a single .bat file to do all the device enable, disable and the sound services restart. Here's how,
First get this small utility (Command line tool to access devices)
devmanview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/device_manager_view.html
extract and copy DevManView.exe to windows/system32. (Need it for the dos command line)

Write the command lines to a .bat file and you're done. Just click it, and all done in one shot.

Here's my one
DevManView.exe /disable "Realtek High Definition Audio"
DevManView.exe /disable "Speaker/HP (Realtek High Definition Audio)"
DevManView.exe /disable "Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)"

DevManView.exe /enable "Realtek High Definition Audio"
DevManView.exe /enable "Speaker/HP (Realtek High Definition Audio)"
DevManView.exe /enable "Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)"

net stop audiosrv
net stop AudioEndpointBuilder
net start audiosrv
net start AudioEndpointBuilder

To make the commands, Run the DevManView.exe and get the device names you need to enable / disable and enter it exactly within "" in the command line.

Cheers!

 

[draco2023a]

Hi! Everyone,
Hope this will help you.
I'm using a single .bat file to do all the device enable, disable and the sound services restart. Here's how,
First get this small utility (Command line tool to access devices)
devmanview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/device_manager_view.html
extract and copy DevManView.exe to windows/system32. (Need it for the dos command line)

Write the command lines to a .bat file and you're done. Just click it, and all done in one shot.

Here's my one
DevManView.exe /disable "Realtek High Definition Audio"
DevManView.exe /disable "Speaker/HP (Realtek High Definition Audio)"
DevManView.exe /disable "Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)"

DevManView.exe /enable "Realtek High Definition Audio"
DevManView.exe /enable "Speaker/HP (Realtek High Definition Audio)"
DevManView.exe /enable "Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)"

net stop audiosrv
net stop AudioEndpointBuilder
net start audiosrv
net start AudioEndpointBuilder

To make the commands, Run the DevManView.exe and get the device names you need to enable / disable and enter it exactly within "" in the command line.

Cheers!

Thanks for this. Works perfectly for my Tascam FW1082.

 

[vailr]

Another possible method is to clean out non-present devices.
Iobit Driver Booster 4 (free) includes the "Clean Unplugged Devices" option.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/driver_booster_beta.html

 

[Auric]

The easiest possible method is switching the Mode from Audio Control Panel.