"No Audio Output Device is installed" - Vista 64

[Kadence]

I have Vista 64 and my sound suddenly stopped working while Windows was running. I recall reading some message about an issue with SoundMax drivers, though I don't recall what it said. I tried downloading SoundMax drivers for Vista 64, but when I run setup I get the message:

The audio driver files do not support your computer hardware.
Note: If you uninstalled audio software without restarting your PC, restart now, then run this setup again.

I did uninstall the previous SoundMax driver and rebooted but get the same message.

I also went to Device Manager>Sound, video and game controllers, where are two devices labeled "ATI High Definition Audio Device". I uninstalled both devices, and then scanned for new hardware. Both devices were successfully reinstalled - but, this did not help the sound issue.

I have turned my speakers on and off, and also unplugged them/reconnected them. I have also tried updating my motherboard's BIOS.

I have also tried booting from another hard disk, that has a separate install of Vista 64. The sound problem is the same on this OS - which might indicate it's a hardware issue? Don't really know myself. I tried the same fixes on this OS (attempted to install SoundMax drivers, and uninstalled the ATI HD audio device in Device Manager).

I am not sure what caused the sound issue. I do remember trying some headphones in the front jack for the first time (not the rear input, but the one in the front), but do not recall if the sound problem started just after this or not.

What might be the problem here and some possible solutions?

 

[mlc]

honestly.. it seems like you might have the wrong drivers downloaded ? So doublecheck your device model, etc.. and ensure you're downloading the right flavor or windows

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do you have an ATI Radeon 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, or 5xxx series card installed? That's where the ATI HD audio device is coming from. It's the onboard audio from an ATI video card.

 

[Lanyap]

The two devices labeled "ATI High Definition Audio Device" are from your HD4870 and HD4850 video cards. Your onboard sound device should be in the same device manager section as ATI HD sound or listed as an unknown device if no drivers are loaded. If you don't see your onboard sound listed in device manager then its not being detected.

Check the BIOS to make sure onboard sound is turned on.

Check all of your audio connections and jumpers on the motherboard. Did you do anything with the motherboard before you used the front panel for headphones?

 

[Kadence]

Thanks for the responses.

honestly.. it seems like you might have the wrong drivers downloaded ? So doublecheck your device model, etc.. and ensure you're downloading the right flavor or windows

I believe I have the right drivers, they are from the Asus support site for my motherboard, and they are for Vista 64. I also downloaded SoundMax Vista 64 drivers from techspot.com.

The two devices labeled "ATI High Definition Audio Device" are from your HD4870 and HD4850 video cards. Your onboard sound device should be in the same device manager section as ATI HD sound or listed as an unknown device if no drivers are loaded. If you don't see your onboard sound listed in device manager then its not being detected.

Check the BIOS to make sure onboard sound is turned on.

Check all of your audio connections and jumpers on the motherboard. Did you do anything with the motherboard before you used the front panel for headphones?

The ATI devices are the only ones shown in Device Manager in the "Sound, video and game controllers" section so I guess it's not being detected, but I don't know why.

I didn't open the computer or touch the motherboard before testing the front headphones jack, I hadn't opened or even moved the case for a while. There's a wire from the front panel that plugs into a connector labeled "ADH" on the motherboard, which I suppose is the same as "HDA" (the manual for my Antec 1200 says it's supposed to go into an HDA connector, and it fits onto the ADH one, doesn't fit anywhere else). I rechecked the connections for the audio card but that didn't change anything.

 

[mlc]

see if the device manager is showing it under the "unknown device" section...

It's possible the hardware became damaged.. but I suspect it's still a driver issue, based on the messages you received.. Vista 64 wasn't the smoothest release w/respect to drivers.

Try a different driver version as well..

 

[Blunc]

even if you didn't change anything in bios, reboot and go into bios and make sure that the onboard audio says "enabled" rather than AUTO.

I spent a few hours fighting this problem when I installed an ATI 5570 into a Dell computer.

 

[Kadence]

I checked the BIOS, under Onboard devices it has "Enabled".

I opened the case and disconnected the front microphone wire from the connector, and also removed and reseated the audio card. Doesn't seem to be a hardware issue though as I booted with an Ubuntu boot disk and the sound worked from there.

The drivers are the proper ones as far as I can tell, I downloaded them from the proper section for my board and OS on the Asus site. Asus support also told me to download these drivers and I got the same error message as above. I also downloaded these SoundMax Vista 64 drivers which I found from Google, same error message.

 

[mlc]

well.. if it works with the other os boot disk, then you know you've ruled out hardware.. and the issue must be one of three things...

1) wrong drivers
2) problem with os (corrupt registry, etc.)
3) settings are incorrect

Assuming you know the audio settings are correct, nothing muted.. etc.. then i would maybe try a registry cleaner tool... or a fresh resinstall of vista

I would also consider trying an older version of the drivers.. just to rule out a driver issue completely.. as i'm not convinced this isn't a driver issue....

 

[Lanyap]

Try doing a Windows system restore back to a date before the problem started. If the problem is software related this should fix it.

 

[sandorski]

Try doing a Windows system restore back to a date before the problem started. If the problem is software related this should fix it.

..or you can try a Repair Install of Windows.

 

[Kadence]

Unfortunately I don't have any restore points from before the issue started.

And I can't do a Repair install because I did a repair install a few days before this problem started, and since then Vista won't recognize my DVD drives I tried reinstalling the drivers but that fails, tried uninstalling the drives in Device Manager and searching for new hardware (which adds the drives but with driver issues), also tried the Microsoft Fix it tool (which also tries to reinstall drivers, but fails). That is definitely a driver issue with this install only since in my other install of Vista the drives are recognized fine. I'd like to do a Repair Install again to fix that issue - but the issue itself prevents that, since you can't do a Repair Install from boot, you have to do it from inside Windows.

 

[sandorski]

No, you can do a Repair from Boot off the DVD/CD.

 

[Kadence]

How do you do a repair from boot?

This page says: "WARNING: Do not boot the computer and run the Vista installation DVD from boot. A upgrade install will not work this way."

And when I boot up, repair is greyed out.

 

[mlc]

wait a second.. you failed to mention that your dvd drives are not recognized either ? and you also did a REPAIR for another problem ? what problem was that for?

.. anything else you'd like to mention?

It sounds like something is corrupt.. So i'd first run a CHECKDISK and scan for malware... and if nothing shows up.. try reinstalling windows

 

[Kadence]

I did a repair for the problems mentioned in this thread - basically WMP didn't work and the "Windows Features" list was blank. After the repair install this issues were fixed, but then I couldn't get the DVD drive drivers to work.

I believe the sound issue occurred randomly while I was using the computer, about a week after the repair install. The odd thing is that while it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue (since sound works in Ubuntu), my other install of Vista (which was fresh from a couple months ago and is basically empty, just Vista) also had no sound. I will try installing Vista fresh again onto that drive and see if sound works there.

I've run disk error checking and also for malware.

 

[Lanyap]

Vista sucks. I suggest you go ahead and upgrade to 7.

 

[sandorski]

If you can't do a Repair and you keep getting bizarre problems, I think a Format and Windows reinstall is about the only thing left that isn't going to start Costing you.

 

[Kadence]

OK, I formatted the drive that had my other install of Vista, and reinstalled Vista fresh on that drive. However, sound is not working on this new install either.

In my original Vista install, the volume control has a red "X" through it and it says there are no playback devices connected (it shows the two HDMI devices but lists as disconnected). This isn't the case in the new install - the volume control works and the two HDMI devices are connected, but, I still don't get any sound.

In Ubuntu the same two devices are shown, and when I test them one of them works and the other doesn't. In the new Vista install, when I test the playback for both (through Recording Devices>Playback>Configure) , neither makes any noise.

I attempted to install the SoundMax drives on this install, but get the same hardware not supported error as before.

I can't understand why a fresh install of Vista would have this issue, when sound works in Ubuntu? Anyone have any guesses as to how that's possible?

 

[C1]

- In the original VISTA install, is it possible that the problem could have been cased by an automatic download of a VISTA OS update?

- Did you install any other applications or update any applications (eg, flash player, quicktime, etc.)?

- Sometimes an OS can install wth the wrong HAL.

- Whenever having problems like you are having dont just format and reinstall. WIPE the drive, FORMAT then reinstall. You might be surprised.

Most likely you have a driver issue and some update (from Microsoft or otherwise) changed the system to cause the original issue. If you've ever tried to install an operating system on a notebook from scratch without the OEM propriatary disk, you will find that there is an order of dependency among hardware/driver installations. For example, chipset, video, network, etc. In such chain, when there is a modem, NIC or video card, the drivers for these devices may need to be established first before sound drivers will correctly register. In certain cases such as with sound and particuarly with video, drivers can be difficult or touchy to get to install.

A possibility for you is to try to remove some of the hardware items which in anyway involve use of sound and try to install them individually but in a different order. If it worked once then it can be made to work again.

PS: I remember one guy who couldnt get audio to install/work in his Fujitsu notebook. I had the exact same notebook & what he was intending to do I got working fine on my machine. We worked here over forums for three or four days trying different approached until finally achieving success.

 

[Kadence]

I don't know if the problem was caused by an automatic update. No, I didn't install any other applications preceding the issue, nor did I install anything onto the new Vista install.

What does "wrong HAL" mean? And what do you mean by "WIPE the drive"?

 

[C1]

WIPE (also known as ZAP) is an old program (freeware) that I use to write zeros over the drive. You would be shocked to see how many times Ive cured somebody's problem by ensuring that sector 0 is completely cleared of some weird trash that spooks WIN's installer. Not sure if this program is available still, but there are other equivalent freeware ones.

A hardware abstraction layer (HAL) is an abstraction layer, implemented in software, between the physical hardware of a computer and the software that runs on that computer. Its function is to hide differences in hardware from most of the operating system kernel, so that most of the kernel-mode code does not need to be changed to run on systems with different hardware. On a PC, HAL can basically be considered to be the driver for the motherboard and allows instructions from higher level computer languages to communicate with lower level components, such as directly with hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_layer

Windows rarely messes up the HAL and the only reason why I brought it up is because it seemed that you reported two different windows behaviors each for subsequent installs.

For now, try different ways of installing the latest drivers for sound. Often there can be as many as four or five subtle install variations which can be attempted (eg, ranging from full auto-extraction to various manual install variations).

 

[Kadence]

I finally tried installing a PCI sound card. Sound works fine now.

So, I suppose it was a hardware issue after all. Sound card must have randomly gone on the fritz for some reason. That must be why it kept saying the proper drivers didn't detect compatiable hardware.

 

[Wolfsraider]

in win 7 and vista soundmax is missing the bus 32 driver


"UAA HD audio bus driver" i believe its called , only affected 3 of my installs this week but sounds like your issue (it will let you install the driver, but pops a message that its required in most cases during install) without it no sound

 

[Kadence]

No, I never got any message like that. Just the "The audio driver files do not support your computer hardware." The driver setup program exits after that, nothing is installed.