soundmax integrated driver

this appears to be working but there is no sound. i get the message "failed to play test tone" when i click test in playback devices. I've been to countless forums and have found that many have had similar issues with various audio cards but i haven't found a fix for soundmax. windows update automatically downloads updates for this and then tells me that it is working when it isn't. I have even tried to use generic drivers (like realteks) to see if that would work. I've tried compatibility mode with no luck as well. Please help.

Current Broken/non-funtioning Driveri : Soundmax Integrated Driver Version 5.12.1.5290
System : HP Pavillion dv4015cl
OS : Windows 7 Build 7022.winmain.090115-1850


PS
I may not be a computer technician or anything but I do have a fair amount of experience installing drivers and stuff so please assume that I have done most of things that I should have tried to troubleshoot if you are nice enough to offer me some advice. THANKS!

I'm using soundmax integrated audio as well with no problems.

Open your control panel and click on your sound icon. Make sure you are on the Playback tab at the top it should come up as the default tab. Then check to see if "speakers" is set to your default device and if they list soundmax. If "speakers" is not set as default left click on the "speakers" selection to highlight it and then click on "set default" at the bottom of the window.

thats weird you are not having any problems. i know there are others out there like me that are having the problem.

oh.... btw of course i checked to see if it was my default device. i need working drivers so like i said in my original post please assume i have a clue. thanks for trying but i posted that in the first place to avoid these kind of obvious responses.

so to be clear..... the drivers were automatically updated by windows 7. windows thinks everything is functioning correctly. they are assigned as my default drivers. there is no little red ex by the speaker icon in the tray. the playback devices shows a graph next to the device that would be lit up with green bars if it was working. there are no bars. the only indications other than that that it isnt working is the message "failed to play test tone" when testing and also simply the fact that i have no sound.

i have looked all over for working drivers on various forums using various google search terms like "windows 7, drivers, soundmax, realtek, asus, etc..."

i have been to all these manufacturers website and keep downloading versions of the driver that dont work among other issues that are haulting any progress.

edit: whoa i found a fix. read on.

im not sure how this works but it does....

1. first download this file: audio.zip - Audio Driver for Win 7 - BADONGO

2. right click on "Computer" and select properties. Open Device Manager.

3. Uninstall Soundmax.

4. Open that zip from step 1 and extract to a new folder on the desktop.

5. Run Setup.exe and complete.

6. Restart.

7. Once you are back you're sound icon will be missing from the tray and windows will reinstall the soundmax drivers. (This was weird to me because I already uninstalled and tried installing seperate drivers before and wasnt able to make it work).

8. Open up YouTube or something and if everything worked you should be able to hear a video or something even though the sound icon is still gone. (You can just restart again and the icon will reappear.

* The downside to all this is that the zip installs a small but strange media player that you can just ignore. Worth it to me.

I found this out by searching for the solution on YouTube believe or not. I decided to type out the direction myself since I didnt see why the guy did it via YouTube in the first place.

Here is the video if you want the directions literally spelled out for you

Originally Posted by rottingroom

oh.... btw of course i checked to see if it was my default device. i need working drivers so like i said in my original post please assume i have a clue. thanks for trying but i posted that in the first place to avoid these kind of obvious responses.

so to be clear..... the drivers were automatically updated by windows 7. windows thinks everything is functioning correctly. they are assigned as my default drivers. there is no little red ex by the speaker icon in the tray. the playback devices shows a graph next to the device that would be lit up with green bars if it was working. there are no bars. the only indications other than that that it isnt working is the message "failed to play test tone" when testing and also simply the fact that i have no sound.

I figured you had checked but what can I say I threw it out there anyway.

I had an issue at first because windows updated my sound driver also. But when it did it changed my default device from soundmax to my HDMI output and from what you were saying it sounded similiar...everything says it is functioning normally but no sound. Anyway, glad you found a fix!!

Originally Posted by sssteve72

I figured you had checked but what can I say I threw it out there anyway.

I had an issue at first because windows updated my sound driver also. But when it did it changed my default device from soundmax to my HDMI output and from what you were saying it sounded similiar...everything says it is functioning normally but no sound. Anyway, glad you found a fix!!

oh yeah its all good im very happy to finally have sound. i was going bonkers and for the record i don't have HDMI.

Originally Posted by rottingroom

oh yeah its all good im very happy to finally have sound. i was going bonkers and for the record i don't have HDMI.

I'm assuming mine is related to the sound card I have although it doesn't have an HDMI port it has a DVI to HDMI adapter that came with it. I wasn't planning on using it though so I am uncertain.

Some of the folks on this forum are trying too hard. Several of the devices on my box (XP media center) including the soundmax did not work after install. I brought up the device manager, right clicked on every device that had a (!) not working sign, chose 'update driver', and every device in my system, including sound, TV, etc were automatically found and installed. this is pretty amazing.

I got a P4P800 SE with the SM Intgrt Chipset on board Xp works great Windows 7 .... lets not go there. But I will test this out and let you know what happens. No all it installs is another ver. of AC97 Realtek audio player is what that is and still no audio.

I am using Asus P6T Deluxe v2 and Windows 7 x64 RTM and I also have problems in the onboard SoundMax. According to Asus website, the driver version is:

SoundMAX 2000B Drive V6.10.2.6585 Windows 64bit Windows 7.

I have already set the default output to speaker but insert the "green" plug to the Line-Out port at the end of the motherboard, I cannot hear any sound.

When I used a headphone and plug on my case (Lian-Li PC60F) and set as "Front Headphones", I can only hear the music but not the song lyrics when I play an mp3 using WMP12 or winamp.

It is very frustrating, do I need to buy an external sound card to get the problem solved ?

I have motherboard ASUS P5LD2, installed Windows 7 and W7 found "High definition audio device", but sound did not work.

Search through all the internet, and did not find latest available drivers.

ASUS web page under MB downloads, also did not have latest driver versions, and drivers for vista was failing with error "does not support this operating system".

But I resolved it: downloaded driver file from ASUS public FTP: ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/audio/ad1986/ , just under proper 1986 folder HERE , and this fixed my problem - after this software installation , which completed on Win7 succesfully, Win7 found new device and sound is working now!!!