Audio troubles with M1330, need help!

In the process of trying to rid myself of Vista and install XP I have run into some snags along the way. The main snag was the Sata drivers. That now is finally fixed. The main issue now is the audio. For the life of me I cannot get the damn audio to work. I have downloaded the latest from the drivers support page from dell yet every time I reboot to continue the installation it just says it is not compatible.

I have tried removing the pci device as suggested in another thread on this forum up reboot but that does not work. I have tried updating the driver to the folder it is in and that also does not work. Gets a message saying it cannot.

I have tried 4 or 5 different suggested drivers and nothing is working. Can someone please offer some assistance? This is driving me batty.

 

I know your not going to like this, but how about using vista?

 

LOL that's not the solution to the problem. Having used Vista for a week on the machine the choice was clear to go back to XP Pro. it's way to damn slow on Vista. Vista is a total hog of resources. There are many using the M1330 with no troubles on xp pro so I am hoping one of them can share a step by step instruction for getting the audio to work.

 

Under System Devices in Device Manager, do you have Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio?

 

yes I do. When I try to update the driver that is what appears.

 

Strange, should work. Do you have any unidentified devices in Device Manager?

 

Yes, PCI device which is for the audio

 

Hardware ID? You can check via details.

 

did u have audio while it was on vista?

 

I was actually pretty shocked this apparent problem to the XP SP2 install was never fully posted. I saw responses with absolutely no instructions and just "oh I fixed thx."

Anyway, it took a little trial and error, but I got it to finally install after encountering the exact same thing you were (install halfway, stop suddenly, after reboot it continues but says "hardware not supported.")

This is how you get the latest Sigmatel audio package from Dell support to install properly under XP:

1) The PCI Device with an exclamation mark after the install gives you the error is "Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio." Only after this is properly installed can the "Sigmatel High Definition Audio CODEC" be detected & installed.
2) Highlight the "PCI Device" with exclamation under DEVICE MANAGER. Go in and click "Update Drivers." After you do this, tell it to search for driver automatically.
3) Even with the partial install of the driver package, it *should* find and update the PCI Device to "Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio."
4) After this installs, your computer will automatically detect new hardware (the audio hardware). At that time, simply run the driver package again, and it should complete properly.

Word of warning though: Even the latest December 07 released XP audio drivers for M1330 are EXTREMELY buggy. Case in point: After installing the bluetooth stack and discovering my hands-free unit, the Sigmatel audio disappeared and only left the "Bluetooth handsfree device" as the only audio option. At that time, under DEVICE MANAGER, the Sigmatel audio hardware had an '!' next to it and said it could not start. Installing the driver package immediately fixed this, but upon reboot, it was missing again. Eventually, I had to uninstall the bluetooth head-set device under "My bluetooth devices" to get the Sigmatel audio to "stick" and not go haywire.

I really, REALLY do hope Dell continues to update and support XP drivers. Some legacy work-related software I use simply cannot run under Vista. Plus, I'm not comfortable putting a first pass M$ OS on my system given the many, many security holes all the other first pass OS's had. Always wait for at least SP1, if not SP2.

 

I managed to get it working last night. Still ended up with an error but my audio is working. Yeah the m1330 is plagued with crap like this. It's sooooo annoying but this is dell for you when trying to use a product with software they do not offer on it. it sickens me people are forcing vista down our throats.

 

As long as all devices are accounted for and you don't have any ! or ?'s in your device manager, you should be golden!

 

i also have this problem. i'm not sure how to get the sigmantel drivers to stick and not have the yellow !.

i use the newest WIDCOMM stack 5.1 something. i would go into device manager and actually uninstall the bluetooth audio drivers. but then i restart, and after a 2nd restart, the bluetooth audio comes back. ???

 

i tried exactly what's posted above:

let pc discover unknown pci device. auto search for driver. it didn't find anything...

so i installed the one i got from the lenovo website.
then i go into device manager, disable bluetooth headset and stereo
install sigmantel
restart
works fine
restart again
sigmantel is disabled with a yellow !

wtf

c'mon dell! give us some bluetooth drivers!

 

my audio driver:
R171789 that came out 12/20/07

this one, for me, doesn't require me to install the microsoft hd audio patch thing

 

anyone know anything about this?

i called dell today, and they told me they're not making a bluetooth driver for xp

 

help? I'm about to go vista because of this stupid issue