I am trying to update the sound drivers on my laptop. A few months back, my laptop's audio began coming through quite scratchy, to the point that I usually completely mute the audio. It is so bad at times that it lags the performance of the rest of the machine, or so it seems.

What information do I need to have on-hand when searching for a more updated sound driver? If I find that the current sound driver I have has not been updated, are sound drivers from other companies typically compatible with various sound cards?

I ran a DirectX Diagnostic (DxDiag) to gather what information I could use to fix the problem. I found out that I am working with the following:

Device: Conexant AMC Audio
Driver:
Name- camc6aud.sys
Version- 6.14.0010.0575 (English)
Date- 4/20/2005
WHQL Logo'd- Yes
Provider- Conexant

Any suggestions?