Can't get Realtek audio drivers to install on 790i Ultra MB

[comrade]

Just finished building a new computer.

EVGA 790i Ultra MB, 4 gig Corsair DDR3-1333 mem, two BFG 8800GTX OC video cards in SLI, Thermaltake Toughpower 700watt PS, WD Raptor 150 gig SATA 10,000 rpm HD partitioned in half with Win XP Pro on one partition and Vista Ultimate on the other, 24 inch Hyundai wide screen LCD. Got a couple of Samsung DVD drives and three other hard drives left over from older computers.

On the Vista side..., everythings fine.

On the XP partition, I cannot get the on board audio to work. I run the EVGA install disk, and it installs most of the drivers OK, but the on board HD audio..., nothing. A couple of unknown PCI devices show up in Device Manager, but with no drivers. No matter what I do, I cannot get it to produce sound. Windows Media Player says it cannot find audio drivers. My TV tuner card will not work becasue it says it cannot find the audio drivers.

The same video card and audio system work fine in Vista...., but nothing in XP.

I've got XP Pro with SP 2 and 3 installed.

I also cannot get the free McAfee software to install. It downloads and then gives an error message as soon as the install starts. I spent an hour on the phone with Comcast and McAfee yesterday to no avail.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm getting quite frustrated!

Thanks for any help!

 

[akhilles]

These guys can help:

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/defaultmb.asp

 

[evongugg]

Did you connect the HD Audio plug into the motherboard internal audio connector or the AC97 plug?

 

[comrade]

I've emailed EVGA and haven't received anything yet. It's been almost two days.

For evongugg, I'm not sure what you're talking about with the HD audio plug. I'm talking about the drivers for the MB itself. I'm plugging my speakers into the MB plugs on the back panel. The same setup works in Vista and the same speakers worked on my last MB, an ASUS P5W HD Deluxe, that had on-board HD audio.

When I try to play anything on Windows Media Player, it gives an error message saying there's no audio drivers installed. When I look in the Add/Remove Programs area of the Control Panel, it shows the Realtek HD audio drivers as being installed, but they don't show up in Device Manager.

Under Sound, Video and Game Controllers, the HD audio drivers don't show up, just legacy audio and generic audio codec which don't seem to do anything. My TV tuner says there's no audio device installed when I try and run that. It should show the HD audio drivers and use them.

 

[weilin]

um go to http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false and go download the driver for your OS. XP doesn't have Microsoft HD Audio driver or something so your HD audio device doesn't get picked up. What you are about to download also contains hte Realtek driver so the motheraord disk is not necessary.

 

[comrade]

I did download that driver and tried it last night. That didn't work either. I've seen on some other message boards about problems loading drivers on the 790i MB's with a SATA DVD drive. I've got two of those installed on this system and it seemed to load OK...., but no sound. Everything worked fine on the Vista Ultimate partition. Everything installed there without a hitch.

 

[evongugg]

Your case has a wire with two plugs, one marked HD Audio and one marked AC97. If you plugged the AC97 plug into the motherboard (internal audio connector), sound will not work.
If not, I don't know the solution.

 

[comrade]

I don't remember seeing a plug like that on my Thermaltake V8000. Besides....., I have Vista Ultimate and XP Pro in a dual boot setup, and the sound works fine under Vista.

I'll check the plugs tonight and see what I can find.

Thanks!

 

[akhilles]

Microsoft HD Audio driver must be installed in addition to audio driver, or else HD won't work.

 

[comrade]

It finally took a clean reinstall of XP and then the HD audio drivers would install! At least Microsoft doesn't seem to question multiple reactivations of OEM software.

I reformatted the partition and reinstalled my old OEM copy of XP, then I installed all the drivers before doing the service pack 2 and 3 updates. The free McAfee from Comcast even installed this time.