m9750 audio problems

I run vista 32bit, on the m9750 Alienware. It has a realtek sound driver/card. Today I installed sp1, sp2, and a plethora of other windows update, and upon finishing all of these found out my audio doesn't work! The bottom right audio symbol is not shown as disabled, and it shows it as registering sounds (the little bar goes up and down when iTunes is playing a song). I followed microsoft/vista advice from this page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948481 both the 'Fix It' program and do it yourself and neither worked. I then attempted to system restore to a point before the updates but the only point available was after (or just before) installing sp2 the final one I did (and if I go back to it doesn't help). On this site I found a link to the m9750 realtek driver page and installed the vista driver, only to find my 'Realtek High Definition Audio' to be completely missing! So I restored back to the only point I have, and now sit here stumped and fairly jaded.

And your forum doesn't even allow me to search old topics to see if anyone else has encountered this?

Well if anyone can help me that would be great. I have contacted Alienware Australia to see if they can help but considering how long it has taken them to reply and/or help me in the past I'm not holding my breath.

 

I would recommend checking each of the ports with some headphones and seeing if the sound is coming out there instead of the internal speakers as a first step, if they are then we can safely say theres some kind of configuration issue with the Realtek card outputting to only the jacks instead of the onboard speakers. Just Remember to try all of the output jacks on the laptop not just the headphones one.

 

Sorry I thought I put that in there. Checked with headphones and still no sound. The inbuilt mic seems to not be working either (not picking up sound). Actually I was just double checking the bottom of the laptop for what model it is, and it says 9700i R1 series

 

Go To Realtek's website and try the latest Audio Driver From there would be the next step forward if the ports arent working either

 

Tried that, and after I installed it no sound, and the driver Realtek High Def Audio was completely missing from device manager.

 

I tried installing the latest drivers again got the same result. There is still a High Definition Audio device, doesn't have the Realtek name on it now though.

I'd love to frisbee this laptop into the river.

 

Just had a quick scan of the M9750 Knowledge Base. This is a suggestion from XP but may also apply to vista, but check that the Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio is installed in the Device Manager, if you cant find that entry then search for an PCI Device with an exclamation mark update it, set it to automatically find and it should install ok.

 

I couldn't find anything in the device manager that said Microsoft UAA Bus Driver, and sorry I don't understand where I will find a PCI device with an exclamation mark, I can't see anything like that in device manager.

Appreciating your help though

 

http://www.windowsreference.com/win...-missing-or-no-sound-after-vista-sp1-install/
If you read some of the comments on that page, a few people seem to have had the same problem as me in the past.

 

In Device Manager, View-Devices By Connection Then it should be underneath "PCI Bus" Have You Tried the suggestions given on the page you linked?

 

Yes I tried all suggestions on the linked page. I have tried installing various different drivers from realtek with no success. There was no UAA Bus Driver, nor one with an exclamation mark.

 

Well I turned it off for about 6 hours, and viola! it worked. So maybe it was overheated or just needed some downtime, but sound has returned. Cheers for your help simon.