Vostro 1500 Win XP w/sp2 SigmaTel High Def Audio CODEC conflict

Hi

I have the same problem with Matt but my laptop is Vostro 1500 vista. I am trying to sole it.

I have a bigger problem. when I check my service tag then go to 'Drivers and Downloads '. The sound driver that appears on the list (to download) is STAC 92xx C-Major HD Audio not SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC which is attached to my laptop. This is one inappropriation which make me suspect that My laptop is a refractorried one not a brandnew one.

In short, Can you explain the meaning of service tag to the configuration of one laptop.... please.

Ha Tien Van, Leuven, Belgium

The term "codec" in this context means the Sigmatel audio chip on the motherboard. Sigmatel STAC 92xx C-Major HD is the name of the driver for the Sigmatel chip.

pasx,

Your post has been removed, probably for a language violation. You wrote

There is no visible conflict but the audio driver won't install - every other attempt at installation will report an error and suggest you reboot. I am d... sure the card is working fine because I have a double boot and I can listen to the radio on my other system.

You did not mention why you are reinstalling the Sigmatel audio driver. If it is because you reinstalled Windows then be sure to follow the installation order I posted earlier in this thread. Be sure to follow satcom1973 advice about the Ricoh driver. If that doesn't help then try this

1. Open Windows Explorer and go to c:\Dell\drivers\R171789 and delete the R171789 folder. That is the current version of your audio driver.
2. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888111 and get the UAA driver. Install it and restart the computer.
3. Download R171789 again or re-use the previous download if you still have it..
4. After it finishes extracting the files and begins to install, cancel.
5. Open Device Manager and expand System devices near the bottom. Find the PCI Device entry with a ? next to it. Go to the properties and choose to update the driver. Choose to manually find the driver and don't let Windows look for it.
Browse to c:\Dell\drivers\R171789\WDM

With any luck it should detect some new hardware and one of them should be the Sigmatel.

Hi,

Thank you for your answer. My language was a rather flourished and I expected the post to be filtered or removed.

I had a problem with my computer which was - as I finally found - infected by a trojan passing as a service giving me bsod on boot 4 times out of 5. I tracked it down in the services and drivers which took me a while. In the process I repaired my window installation and then found that the sound was gone. Windows is not a model of user-friendliness either for tracking this king of  problem - which persisted after the repair - finding the culprit was a bit tedious with only a line of hexa code as a clue.

I tried to reinstall the sound in safe mode as my computer was booting in that mode and I needed the sound urgently. That was before I read the small print that says that any change to the system in safe mode is not persisted - cool.

Anyway I got rid of the virus and now I am stuck without the sound. I really tried everything short of formatting the drive and voodoo.

I tried to uninstall everything that even remotely related to the audio in the driver list. But trying to uninstall some drivers in order to make way for the new ones is dangerous. I can't remember how I finally managed to re-install the UAA driver after I removed it but that took me a while.

If you put in the balance the UAA, the Ricoh, the NSS, the Chipset and a handful of others, the combinations in which you can install - reinstall are about infinite. Finding the one that work is like the lottery - I haven't win yet.

Add to that the fact that the drivers install themselves as drivers but also as programs. Shall these be removed in the add/remove program list as well when you try to uninstall? Does it make a difference? And of course once you start to mess up with multiple installations the uninstall process becomes corrupted and you'll get weird messages or crashes when you try to uninstall them.

The sigmatel install and quite a number of those I tried will happily get you through the installation process and tell you everything went smoothly when in fact you can tell that they just didn't do anything. I apparently can't reinstall the chipset - it does nothing nor can I remove it to ensure an effective reinstall.

I of course tried all the other tricks I could think of. The add  hardware cp that'll endlessly search for harware to make sure that it takes about half an hour to install anything, the driver update directly from the hardware manager that always get stuck in the middle or ends up telling you the hardware is not working - I have a double boot and listen to music with my other system. So much for hardware not working.

Add to that that one of my system is in French and the other in English, that the translation are approximative and that any 15mb piece of software you download will refuse to work in the other language even if the driver has no user interface. And I don't mind installing an English version of the driver in the French system - it is MY machine after all.

What you suggested didn't work because the UAA is already installed - I tried to uninstall it in order to reinstall it but its installation fails and I restored the system back to square 1 - Make that half an hour. Reinstalling UAA over without uninstalling it first doesn't seem to make installation of the sournd driver work any better, I doubt it has any effect at all.

I was a bit puzzled by your suggestion to delete the c:\dell\drivers\r171789 folder since I thought that installing the drivers would copy them in system32. I tried nonetheless but it made no difference.

I really need to get that thing to work and I can't reinstall the system from scratch. The last thing I want is to go over the installation of oracle, sql server, mysql, apache, iss, visual studio and countless other software. We're talking about a few days.

You can maybe understand why my language was in violation of the posting rules. I was incensed. I still am. I can't lose days trying to reinstall a stoopid (mind the possible violation here) sound driver. Can't you just deliver an installation software that works period?

It really feels like you are knowingly and intentionally trying to have your customer turn mad. At some point in my career I was in charge of maintaining the hardware and systems for a sizable company - I usually can talk these little fellas back to reason. But I am giving up. I am not touching it anymore. I have a tech guy coming in to fix it next week. I just can't take it anymore.

See my point?

Thank you

PG

Yes I see your point. I agree that the Sigmatel driver should install effortlessly. After all of these years they should have got it right.

By the way this is a user-to-user forum so it isn't the best place if you are trying to communicate directly with Dell.

Just rebuilt my vostro1500 purchased back in 2007.  Ran into the same problem with audio. Came across this post, uninstalled Ricoh chipsets drivers, installed audio, then re-installed Ricoh drivers.  Sweet mercy only knows how you ever figured this out, but works like a charm--thanks for sharing your experience/wisdom/knowledge!