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November 24th, 2022 03:00
M6600 IDT audio not working, cannot find drivers
Hello, I am still using an old M6600 notebook that I ad recently upgraded to Windows 10 Professional. All is working smotthly, but I cannot get the internal IDT audio drivers to work correctly. The drivers from Windows update install, no exclamation marks in device manager, but the audio symbol in the traay shows a red X mark to it, and it says that there was some problem with the audio drivers. I actually can try to run Windows' own troubleshoot procedure, but it will not be able to fix the problem.
I tried various IDT High definition drivers from the Microsoft Update catalog, and also tried the Microsoft standard high definition Audio drivers, but none of them work.
Ho can I make the IDT audio work for my old workstation in WIndows 10?
filbert
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November 24th, 2022 06:00
Did your system originally (when delivered) use IDT Audio? If so, Dell's site has an IDT Audio package for M6600 for Windows 7. You will need to do some work to install it.
Some older drivers won't install properly in Windows 10. It may be possible to install it in Compatibility Mode. I did that recently on an 11-year-old Inspiron. The IDT Audio package would fail near the end of the installation process to Windows 10. I did the following:
I launched the Windows 7 audio driver installer. It will tell you what directory the files will extract to, so make note of it. It will be something like "C:\dell\drivers\R308434".
After it extracted, I opened the extracted folder in C:\dell\drivers, right-clicked setup.exe | Properties | Compatibility tab, | at the bottom I clicked "Change settings for all users" and set it to run in compatibility mode as Windows 7.
Then when I tried to launch setup.exe I was blocked. I opened an elevated CMD prompt as administrator, then pasted in the path to setup.exe to run it:
C:\dell\drivers\R308434\setup.exe
It installed.
See this explanation of using elevated CMD prompt to run blocked executables.
After installation, I had to go to C:\Program Files\IDT\WDM to set various IDT audio and other executables to compatibility mode for all users, to enable the IDT control panel to run.
Also, while Windows default drivers won't include all the options of a Dell-provided audio package, they should enable sound output. Perhaps your output device is not properly selected in Windows Settings:
Settings | Sound | under Output | Choose your output device in the drop-down list.
Jackie78
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November 26th, 2022 06:00
After some more googling and trying, I found that focusing only on the drivers was not really helpful, instead I found another solution which surprisingly worked. Looks like some user privileges got corrupted. I had to call from an elevated command prompt the following two commands, and reboot, and everything worked afterwards:
Since the user group "Administrators" is localized, on my German system I had to type
I have absolutely no idea why Micrisoft updates cause such a thing, and why Microsoft is incapable of fixing it automatically. Honestly, without googling i would have never ever tried something like this related to non-working sound drivers...
Jackie78
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November 25th, 2022 02:00
Thank you very much filbert,
acutally I tried what you suggested, the drivers would be installed (driver date 2011), and the drivers will show in Device Manager. But Windows will still fail to play any sound files, and there is a red x to the speaker symbol in the tray, saying "no audio device installed". I cannot select any other audio device in Windows, cause there is none. Actually I am not sure what is different from your inspiron system.
The hardware is okay btw, I tested by booting a Ubuntu Live USB Stick, and the audio worked initially - nice, Linux does the trick without any additional steps, and Windows totally fails in this case
Any other ideas which drivers I could try? Many thanks!
filbert
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November 25th, 2022 06:00
After it installed, did you go into C:\Program Files\IDT and C:\Program Files\IDT\WDM to set all executables to compatibility mode for all users?
You may also need to go into Windows Settings | System | Sound to choose your output device.
Jackie78
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November 26th, 2022 05:00
Hello filbert,
yes, I did all the points as mentioned. I have attached some screenshots for you to check and see what the situation looks like here, all in German language but I think most should be self-explanatory. Windows basically accepts the drivers (see device manager), but it says it cannot find any audio devices. And the Windows troubelshooting assistant also fails to fix the problem.
To me it looks like the drivers are basically okay, but Windows refuses to use them anyway. Do you have any additional ideas? Many thanks