Razer Barracuda AC-1 Problems in Win 7 64 bit and XP 32 bit

[Waltorious]

Hello,

I have a Razer Barracuda AC-1 soundcard that I have used for a while, and I recently migrated it to my new rig. I am dual-booting XP 32 bit and Win 7 Pro 64 bit, and I can't get the card to work in either OS (it used to work perfectly in my old machine, running XP 32 bit). In XP, Windows detects the card but when I install the Razer drivers, the installer does not see the card, giving an error message saying "please plug in Razer Barracuda AC-1 Device" and quitting. In Win 7, the card is detected fine and the Razer drivers install fine, indeed everything seems fine except no sound comes out. I can even watch the "sound bars" going in the Razer control panel, but no sound. Speakers are definitely working as they work with the onboard sound.

I've contacted Razer support but they haven't helped much; here are the things I've tried so far (none of them worked):

1) Disabling onboard sound in BIOS
2) Uninstalling onboard sound drivers
3) Using older versions of drivers in XP, or using the old Vista drivers in Win 7 (there's only one driver version available for Win 7 so when trying old drivers one must use Vista drivers)
4) Replacing the sound adapter dongle that attaches to the back of the card (it converts the proprietary Razer connector, which looks like a DVI plug, into several female 1/8" audio jacks, for speakers, microphone, line in, etc.)
5) Trying a different PCI slot
6) Trying drivers for the HT Omega Claro, which allegedly has the same chipset -- this didn't work because the driver installer didn't detect the card (I only tried this in Win 7)

Details on my rig:

CPU: Core i5-760
Mobo: ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
Video: XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB
Memory: 2x2GB GSkill Eco
PSU: XFX 750W

I am much more concerned with getting the card working in Win 7 as I don't use XP nearly as much. Any advice would be appreciated. Please let me know if you need any more info. Thanks!

 

[gamerk316]

The Razer Barracuda AC-1 and ASUS Xonar D2 share the same EXACT chipset; the only real difference between them is the driver control panel, and ASUS actually updating its drivers. [I moved away from the AC-1 for that very reason...No excuse for waiting 2 years for certified Vista 64 drivers, none.]

Worst case, you can fall back on the generic C-media driver install (you should be able to find them easily enough). Might lose a few advanced features, but other then that, the card should work fine.

The AC-1 is actually a good card too, shame Razer never made a serious attempt to support it.

 

[Waltorious]

Thanks for the reply... I'll try the ASUS drivers later and post back about whether they work. When I tried the HT Omega drivers, the drivers refused to install because they didn't detect the card; if that happens with the ASUS drivers, do you know any way around it?

Also, I am unfamiliar with the generic C-media drivers. I assume that these are different than when Windows tried to install drivers automatically? If I need to find these drivers, what exactly do I search for?

Again, thanks for your help!

 

[gamerk316]

The card itself is based on a generic C-Media chipset, so if you find/download the C-media install package, you should regain functionallity to the card (this is how I used to use the AC-1, before Vista 64 certified drivers came out). I doubt the ASUS drivers would work (as they are tailored to ASUS' cards), but you *might* be able to modify the .ini file to make the install work...

 

[gamerk316]

And to be clear; when you tried to install the Razer drivers, you DID get the latest version off their website, right?

 

[Waltorious]

And to be clear; when you tried to install the Razer drivers, you DID get the latest version off their website, right?

Yeah, sorry I forgot to include version numbers. I got the Windows 7 driver v2.24, which is actually the only Windows 7 version available on Razer's site. I also got the latest XP driver which I think is v1.21. I also tried older drivers to see if those worked; no luck. This included trying Vista drivers in Win 7 as some people in other forums seemed to be able to get those to work in Win 7.

I'll try the ASUS drivers and the C-Media drivers tonight and let you know if they work, thanks!

 

[gamerk316]

Yeah, again, its a shame Razer refused to actually support the AC-1.

 

[Waltorious]

OK, do you know of a confirmed source to download the C-media drivers from? Their site won't let me download without logging in, and I can't see any way to create an account. I tried to find the file hosted on another site, but when I actually went to install it it didn't detect the card, so I think I may have got the wrong file.

The ASUS drivers also failed to detect the card.

This was all in Windows 7.

Thanks!

 

[gamerk316]

I'll take a look when I'm off work (around 6PM EST, assuming I remember to actually look).

In the meantime, you could drop by the guru3d.com forums and drop Robscix a PM; he's the resident audio guru, and could probably give more immediate help to your problem.

 

[MEgamer]

i think it may just be better to get a new soundcard , then going through all that trouble.

anyway the razer making their first soundcard wasnt exactly a success.

 

[gamerk316]

^^ It was about as good as the ASUS D2; its a good card, Razer simply didn't bother to DO anything with it...

 

[Waltorious]

Yeah, I was perfectly satisfied with the sound on my old machine, I just wish I could get it working on my new machine without having to shell out for a new card. It may come to that eventually but I haven't quite given up yet.

I'll check out guru3d.com, thanks for the tip.

 

[jadair37]

my razor drivers were causing my whole system to crash. what a waste of a sick card

 

[B1nary]

I'm having the same exact issue. Drivers all installed, everything is recognizing, but just no sound. Did you ever get this figured out?

 

[Waltorious]

I'm having the same exact issue. Drivers all installed, everything is recognizing, but just no sound. Did you ever get this figured out?

Actually, I eventually gave up and just got a new card (HT Omega Claro Plus, after a lot of research). The Guru3D forums suggested trying the Barracuda in another machine to make sure the card wasn't bad, but I wasn't actually able to do that because I didn't have another machine to put it in. If you do, you should try it and make sure the card isn't bad.

Which OS are you running? You can try all the things I tried to see if you can get yours working, including some I didn't mention in this thread already:

1) Make sure Windows is set to use the Barracuda card and not your onboard sound
2) Disable onboard sound in BIOS
3) Make sure that you have things set correctly in the Razer Control Panel... if you're using analog speakers you need to select that rather than the S/PDIF passthrough.
4) Try drivers from other cards that use the CMedia 8788 chipset, including HT Omega Claro, Asus Xonar D2, and the generic CMedia drivers from CMedia. Some report that this restores basic functionality to the card but you may not be able to get fancy surround settings working fully. Didn't work at all for me though.
5) Contacting Razer support... I called them, and they got me in touch with some people via email. They had a few suggestions but none ended up working and our contact fizzled out. Might be worth a try though.

I hope you can get it working, but Razer aren't really supporting the card anymore and there will probably never be any new drivers for it, so you may eventually need a new card even if you get it working now. I picked HT Omega because they have a reputation for really great drivers and customer support.

 

[isnosche]

I have this card and i'm running it on a win7 64 bit system.

I used the vista 64 bit drivers that were on the razer website.
My card works perfectly, i just installed the drivers and at reboot the driver didn't get installed correctly, i removed the device driver in device manager and reinstalled.
Then it worked perfectly