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XPS M1530 running Windows 7 Professional
Hello all!
I just got this laptop from a friend who refurbishes computers. At first the speakers were working, but we couldn't figure out what was wrong with the mic. After doing some digging online I found that we needed to download a driver in order for the hardware to be compatible with windows 7. Well I downloaded what I though was the necessary driver and now the speakers AND the mic aren't working at all. I'm guessing I downloaded the incorrect driver and now I'm not exactly sure how to fix the issue without performing a restore. Any advice would be extremely appreciated.
Thanks in advance!!!
Jim Coates
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July 20th, 2016 19:00
Hello. There are several ways to try to undo it.
> Run Windows System Restore (type system restore into the Windows search box.). Find a recent restore point dated before you installed the driver.
> Another way is if you know which driver you installed, find it in Device Manager (type device manager into the search box.) Right click on the driver, then click Properties. Click on the driver tab at the top, then select "Rollback Driver", to get rid of it.
> If the driver is an audio driver, you can get rid of it by removing all audio driver files, as follows:
1. Open the Device Manager (find it in the Control Panel, or type devmgmt.msc into the search box).
2. Expand the "Sound, Video & Game Controllers" section.
3. Right click on "Sigmatel High Definition Audio Codec" if it is there, and select to uninstall.
4. Put a check mark in the option to delete the driver software, and then ok.
5. Restart the laptop and go back to the Device Manager and check again for a Sigmatel driver. Keep uninstalling & restarting until Sigmatel no longer appears under Sound...Controllers and "High Definition Audio Device" appears in its place. "High Definition Audio Device" is the name of the native driver.
6. Repeat the steps, and remove any "IDT High Definition Audio Codec" or "Realtek High Definition Audio" that you find. Remove any other audio drivers that you might have installed. Do not remove "High Definition Audio Device" or "Intel Display Audio" (the HDMI audio driver), or "Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus" (an old name for Display Audio).
[Note that if in step 2 you only find "High Definition Audio Device", skip the rest of it and go on to the section below.
When the audio driver in Device Manager is just "High Definition Audio Device" (plus the HDMI audio driver), you can go ahead and install the Sigmatel audio driver. There is no Sigmatel Win7 audio driver for the XPS M1530, so you have to install the Vista version of the driver, using Compatibility mode.
1. Download and save the audio driver to your desktop or any convenient location on the hard drive.
2. Double click on the new folder to extract (unzip) the driver files.
3. The extractor wizard will create a new folder for the driver files. It will be at "c:\dell\drivers\xxxxxx". Write down the exact location that the wizard creates.
4. If the driver begins to install automatically, halt (cancel) the installation.
5. Browse to the driver files on the hard drive (the location you wrote down).
6. Find the "setup.exe" file.
7. Right click on setup.exe to open the context menu.
8. Select the Properties.
9. Select the Compatibility tab.
10. Check the box "run this program in compatibility mode for Windows Vista.
If the driver installs okay, test the mic. That driver should get the external mic jack working.
If you need to get the webcam mic working too, try installing the Creative Labs Integrated Webcam driver, and the Creative Labs Webcam Manager. (Both of those are for Vista -- might or might not need compatibility mode.)