New driver for RealTek ALC888 HD Audio?

You'll be beter off installing the Creative X-Fi Xtereme music and disabling your on-board soundcard. My 630i has occasional strange audio issues coming out of standby with the on-board RealTek ALC888 audio. And the X-Fi sounds better too.

I was just about to post a similar question, and I've been checking repeatedly on Dells site and have contacted support regarding this, the link has never worked to date.  (Realtek driver for xp pro)  I desperately needed the driver too as I reformatted shortly after recieving my 630.  Like you I have XP Pro installed, so I'm not sure if the poster above knows or not, but if you order a 630 with XP Pro a "Creative X-Fi Xtereme" is not an option.  Anyway after reformatting and calling support, a Tech found a a realtek driver online for me (I wish I could remeber where from?), but it was some third party site, not dell, nor realtek.  Anyway the only info I can give right now is its labeled as WDM_R161 and I'm hoping Dell does post the driver correctly, because, though I have sound, and its clear and everything seems to work fine, I can hear my processor think through my speakers, weening sounds, etc.  Very odd.

 

So please if anyone knows an answer to this, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

XPS 630i

Win XP Pro (supplied by Dell)

3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz SATA 2 RAID 0 With Dual 500GB Hard Drives
Realtek Integrated Audio


Speakers (work fine on my xps gen1 w/ Creative SB) but generate noise from 630i, while processing....
Dell Altec Lansing
ADA995
5.1 THX

 

I wish they would get that link working just so I can hear what the onboard audio then sounds like. I already own a SB X-Fi XtremeMusic and as soon as i can find the time I will be installing it in my new 630i. It will work just fine but I will lose the use of the front panel headphone jack due to the lack of the correct FP header on the Sound Blaster card. I hear that the SB X-Fi Xtremegamer (a cheaper card) does have the right front panel header but I'm not sure that it is as good a card as I already own, it's much thinner and has cheaper plastic inputs on the back. Maybe it's just as good, I really don't know. I use my computer to feed MP3's and Flac files to my home stereo so the sound is important to me.

 

All and all I don't think that the onboard sound is that bad at all, it doesn't have the tight deep bass that the X-Fi XtremeMusic has or as clean a top end but it's onboard sound.

 

XPS 630i
Intel Core2 E8400
Windows XP Pro
4GB Corsair Dominator
500GB - 7200RPM, SATA
Dual Drives: 48x Combo + 16x DVD+/-RW
Sony GDM-F520
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
B&W CDM1NT with Velodyne VA-1250X
X-Fi XtremeMusic (to ne installed)

 

 

KLJTech,

What is the link?