Realtek HD Audio Driver Failed (-10) on Ativ Book 8

Hey Guys,

I've posted about this several times before in the official Ativ Book 8/Series 7 Chronos forum, but haven't received any response yet, so I decided to create a thread in hopes that other people with Samsung laptops have had this problem.

I upgraded to Windows 8.1 as soon as I bought the laptop in December, and have not had a Realtek HD Audio driver since. I'm currently running the latest version of Windows 8.1 Pro, and the speakers are running what I assume to be the Microsoft audio drivers. I want to say the problem began when I installed a SSD and restored Windows. Every time I try to download the Realtek audio driver, be it from Samsung's Software Update, the Realtek website, or other means, the installation fails.

Can someone please help me out? Am praying that I can resolve this without doing a full restore of Windows.

 

I had the same problem when I upgraded my 7 Chronos to W8.1 in January.
If I recall correctly, I tried uninstalling the Realtek driver and installing from SW Update, still didn't work. Then I've tried installing directly from Realtek website, still the same problem. Then I think I've went to Device Manager and kinda got into a mess by uninstalling the audio drivers there (both intel and realtek) then downloaded the intel one through device manager and I think I was able to install Realtek 6.0.1.7055 via the saved file from SW Update. But SW Update still showed that my audio driver wasn't up to date and kept offering me the same version, with a constant pop up message that my FN key wasn't working (when it was). It took a BIOS update, or maybe a Settings one, to finally get rid of the warnings, and to SW Update stop offering me the audio driver.
I think I made a complete mess, but it ended up alright, somehow.
Hope it helps somehow, sorry I don't recall exactly what I did (it was basically trial and error)

 

Hello generals1992,

As you may have noticed if you followed our Win8.1 UPdate thread, we originally advised Samsung owners to avoid Win8.1, since there were incompatibilities that affected many models -- some in rather serious ways. But recently we decided to change that advice -- not to outright recommend updating, since it is still not a flawless process for everybody -- but to at least acknowledge that the most serious incompatibilities have been addressed (both by Microsoft and Samsung) and that the flood of problem reports have reduced to a trickle.

If you have NOT yet had a chance to study that thread, I recommend you check the update in its opening post, then scan backwards for posts relevant to your models.

On my own Series 7 model from 2012, I found that uninstalling old Samsung drivers (using Windows Programs and Features control panel) and installing drivers from Windows update, generally worked better than other driver hacks from 3rd parties. You will not get the very latest bleeding edge graphics drivers this way, but for common components it makes sense, since Win8.1 includes fairly recent drivers for those.

That is what I would recommend in your case as well.

I do see your post from January in the AB8 Owners Lounge. If this thread goes quiet (at least 24 hours) without a solution, I suggest you post again there. Search it first (if you haven't followed it regularly since Win8.1 release) as it may contain relevant posts already.

 

Thank you Dannemand. I followed your link to the Win8.1 Update Thread and searched under "sound" and realtek" within the thread. There was a post there that suggested renaming a folder, and that did the trick!

Thank you so much.

For anyone else that might have this issue, here is the solution that worked for me:

Originally Posted by JBR48
Well, it took some time, but I found the problem. I modified the Setup.ini file of the Sound driver in order to get an interactive install instead of the silent install I had before. In the interactive window I saw the error message:

An error (-5009 : 0x8002802b) has occurred ...

Some Googling took me to the following page:

Error 0x8002802B: Element not found

A fellow called RikMar advised to delete or rename Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Professional. Renaming the directory to Professional.old and running the install again indeed solved the problem.


And here is the amended solution for Windows 8.1.

OK, I got the solution. In Windows 8.1 64bit version the folder Common Files\InstallShield\Professional is under Program Files (x86) [in my case it's written in Polish - Pliki programów (x86)]. And the above posted solution worked for me. I hope the same goes for you.

 

Excellent! Thank you for the update and for sharing that fix here -- with proper credit.