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webbo 0 Junior Poster in Training

:?:
i recently installed vista 64 on my system and its working pretty well, anyway the problem is when i first installed it the automatic updates installed the sounds drivers for the realtek ac97 audio, but no sound it hasnt stated theres a problem but i still have no sound. i went to realtek website downloaded the drivers which say it works for vista 64 and when i install obviously it requests a restart so i follow its instructions and then as its rebooting it fails saying 'disk boot failure' so i have to pop in the vista disk and roll back to a previous time using the system restore, which is ok but i still have no sound also the soundman software thats part of the install isnt compatible, could there be an issue with that?

any ideas cause i really want sound but i might have to buy a x-fi sound card if i cant get this sorted

many thanks :)

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Dani AI

Generated

— before trying another driver package, make a quick recovery plan: create a full disk image or at minimum a system restore point plus a Windows recovery/repair disk. That prevents repeated recovery with the installer causing an unusable boot.

Practical troubleshooting steps to follow in order:

  1. Identify the exact audio device in Device Manager and copy the Hardware Ids (Properties -> Details -> Hardware Ids). Use that string to get the correct x64 driver — motherboard vendor pages are often more reliable than the generic vendor installer.
  2. Install drivers without running the vendor installer: extract the driver package (7-Zip works) and update the device via Device Manager -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer -> Let me pick -> Have Disk, then point to the extracted .inf. This avoids any post-install scripts the full installer runs.
  3. If Windows shows an unknown device, right-click and uninstall it, check "Delete the driver software for this device" if present, then install the correct .inf as above.
  4. Make sure chipset drivers and the motherboard BIOS are up to date — some audio problems on 64-bit Vista are resolved by chipset/BIOS fixes, not just audio drivers.
  5. If you still get boot problems, do not run the full installer again. Test hardware independently (boot a Linux live USB to confirm audio works) and only then try alternate drivers.

If after all this the onboard audio cannot be made stable, a discrete PCIe/PCI card is a reasonable fallback. Always keep your recovery media current before experimenting with low-level drivers on a 64-bit OS.

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