Why is Vista reloading drivers?

[Rockhound1]

I just put together a new system using an old Athlon 64 3700+ 939 processor and a new Asus A8V-VM SE (VIA K8M890 chipset) motherboard. I have 1 GB of PC3200 in it as well as a 160 PATA drive. I have loaded Vista Home Premium on the system. Everything seemed to load up without any problems, with the exception of the drivers for the integrated sound chip. The motherboard uses the Realtek ALC660 codec.

I noticed that Vista loaded drivers for the Realtek, but it would not produce any sound. Device Manager said the device was working properly, however, no sound. Well, I did a little research on the Web and found out this was a common problem for Vista and the Realtek ALC660. I found some drivers that will work for Vista (170 drivers from Realtek). I uninstalled the the device and then immediately installed the 170 drivers using the setup program from Realtek. Boom - I have sound!!!

The problem is, when I shut down and restart the computer, Vista uses the old windows drivers which do not work for the ALC660 which results in no sound! I also have noticed that each time I power up the system, Vista reloads the: 1) VIA standard PCI to PCI bridge; 2) PCI standard PCI to PCI bridge; 3) high definition audio controller; and high definition audio device.

What is going on here? Am i doing something wrong, or is this a compatability issue between this motherboard and Vista? Are there any solutions, or should I just blow this away and load Windows XP instead?

Thanks for your help. I will post this on the motherboards catagory as well.

 

[Mem]

Have you tried installing the latest VIA chipset drivers from here .

You have a few things you can try ie install latest VIA chipset drivers,reboot and uninstall sound driver only ,reboot and install new realtek sound driver,reboot and see if it happens again,if so try going to Device Manager and select update sound driver option and point it to the directory you downloaded the Realtek driver.

You can also try as a last resort installing over the top of the old one(ie without uninstalling old sound driver).

 

[Rockhound1]

Mem,

I installed the latest VIA chipset drivers then tried all of your suggestions for the sound drivers. Unfortunately, nothing worked. As soon as I rebooted after loadig all the drivers, Vista would re-load its drivers back on top of the VIA and Realtek drivers thus disabling the sound.

This is crazy. There must be something simple that I am missing. Is there some setting in Vista to tell it not to automatically update the drivers?

I could install a discreet sound card, but I was hoping to keep costs down (and keep the build fairly simple). I also hate the idea of going out and spending $90 on Windows XP. I could replace the motherboard for less than that. Sounds like any option at this point is going to cost me $$.

Any other suggestions?

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

I've always hated VIA so my assumption is it's the motherboards fault. I've always had the stupidest issues with VIA based motherboards.

 

[Rockhound1]

I bought this motherboard so that I could build a system around some old parts (CPU, memory, case, PSU, PATA hard drive, etc.). I was going to give it to my 11-yr old nephew for X-mas so he could do homework, surf the Net, and play some light games (I also bought an 8500GT for it). I had Vista and the other software.

The selection of 939 motherboards is pretty slim these days and I figured an Asus would be a pretty safe bet. The VIA chipset did make me pause, but I figured this was going to be a fairly low-powered system and this chipset has been out for a good long time, so all the bugs must be worked out by now. Maybe I was wrong... I really do not want to spend anymore money on the system since it is a 939 socket and is pretty much a dead-end. The hardware is all together, so maybe the easiest thing to do is buy a copy of Windows XP. Unless someone out there can convince me that the VIA chipset is NOT to blame, this will be the last motherboard with a VIA chipset that I will ever buy.

Any other suggestions?

Edit: By the way, reviews on Newegg were fairly positive for this motherboard.

 

[lxskllr]

I can't help you exactly with the problem, but how about a cheap pci sound card? You could get one that cost less than a new O/S, someone you know may even have one laying around.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It sounds more like a Vista bug than a motherboard bug. Why on earth would it insist on running it's default drivers, if you've already installed 3rd-party drivers. That's broken in the extreme.

 

[Mem]

As soon as I rebooted after loadig all the drivers, Vista would re-load its drivers back on top of the VIA and Realtek drivers thus disabling the sound

That's weird ,normally you get the option to cancel installation of the driver if Vista goes to install it on boot up ie cancel or allow,done this a few times myself with new hardware,ie cancelled Vista's auto driver install then installed my newer driver and had no problems.

I guess you could try CCleaner or RegCleaner and make sure any old leftover entries have been removed before rebooting your PC.

Does your motherboard BIOS have onboard sound set to "auto" setting or just " enabled"?

 

[Rockhound1]

The motherboard sound is set to "auto". The chioces for the audio is either "auto" or "disabled."

I have tried everything, and Vista keeps reloading its audio drivers over the Realtek audio drivers.

People in the Asus forums have confirmed this to be an issue, so I am not the only one experiencing this problem. Looks like I am going to have to load Windows XP on this or buy a new motherboard to run Vista. There is a Foxconn on sale at Newegg (61050BK8MC-KRSHN2) for $44.99 - $25.00 MIR. This would be cheaper than buying a copy of Windows XP.

Hmmm.

Edit: No, I do not get a choice to cancel the driver install. It just does it automatically.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
I've always hated VIA so my assumption is it's the motherboards fault. I've always had the stupidest issues with VIA based motherboards.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[nerp]

Yeah this sounds like typical VIA nonsense to me. I highly doubt Vista is the culprit here.

 

[Mem]

Looks like I am going to have to load Windows XP on this or buy a new motherboard to run Vista. There is a Foxconn on sale at Newegg (61050BK8MC-KRSHN2) for $44.99 - $25.00 MIR. This would be cheaper than buying a copy of Windows XP.

$10 sound card would be a cheaper solution(remember to disable onboard sound in BIOS).

 

[Smilin]

The OS will use the PNP id to find the closest matching driver. If you keep getting the "wrong" one loading then the PNP id of the "right one" in the driver .inf file is too generic.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Smilin
The OS will use the PNP id to find the closest matching driver. If you keep getting the "wrong" one loading then the PNP id of the "right one" in the driver .inf file is too generic.

Shouldn't MS's PnP IDs in their out-of-box drivers, be set to a "too generic" string, so that they don't override more-specific OEM ones?

What happens if they have the same level of Pnp specifity? Does the out-of-box, or the 3rd-party driver "win"?

I don't remember this problem ever happening in XP.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: nerp
Yeah this sounds like typical VIA nonsense to me. I highly doubt Vista is the culprit here.

Actually, its a BIOS programming issue with the HW SSID/SVID being reported incorrectly to Vista, causing it to see different device HWID during boot or waking from hibernation. There are a number of similar cases, most involving VIA chipsets but not exclusively, that were solved with a BIOS update.

ASUS seems to be slow if not incompetent in solving this problem on its affected models. Some models received a BIOS patch that works, some haven't. Everyone else seems to have fixed it on their boards; MSI, Foxconn, ASRock, et. al.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Smilin
The OS will use the PNP id to find the closest matching driver. If you keep getting the "wrong" one loading then the PNP id of the "right one" in the driver .inf file is too generic.

Shouldn't MS's PnP IDs in their out-of-box drivers, be set to a "too generic" string, so that they don't override more-specific OEM ones?

What happens if they have the same level of Pnp specifity? Does the out-of-box, or the 3rd-party driver "win"?

I don't remember this problem ever happening in XP.

I remember seeing a post or two with XP like this years ago,however I can't remember the solution for it,pretty sure its a motherboard BIOS problem rather then OS,otherwise all Vista/XP users would be getting it 😉.

Side Note:what about trying a BIOS update?