Hi all,

I've recently installed a Windows 7 beta on a new partition and I'm having a some problems with drivers, generally, but particularly with sound.

The default W7 audio drivers are hit and miss.  Looking in Device Manager it detects a "High Definition Audio Device" and also a "IDT HD CODEC" I don't know enough about these devices to know if they are installed correctly or not.  It would appear not because after a day or 2 of running this configuration I encounter problems with audio playback, there is a severe delay when playing sounds, CPU 0 and 1 both run at 100% and I can see that there are 2 sound related processes that are causing the demand.  If I delete the device in Device Manager and restart everything works fine again for a day or 2 then something happens and the process repeats.  Also I can right click the IDT device and search for a driver update and this has the same effect of solving the problem but only for a day or 2.  I've repeated this severall times but I haven't come accross a permanent fix for this yet.

Also, If I boot into Vista Device manager shows a IDT Codec and an Nvidia sound driver.  I think it would be a good idea to try to install Nvidia Sound drivers directly for W7 but I don't have any idea which ones I should use (Nvidia seem to be quite pro-active with their W7 driver releases).  I think I should possibly try the latest nForce ???? But I think that they're motherboard drivers???

All my other drivers have been Vista (x64) from the HP Driver pages and appear to work correctly.

Any help would be appreciated

cipicu,

If you go to device manager and either uninstall the IDT CODEC or update driver (I alternate between the two at the moment) That has always removed the notification (something to do with a service, view event log etc etc etc.) for me, and W7 boots in a normal time frame.  Of course when you restart it reinstalls the Driver, sound works, but for me, a couple of days later I have to repeat the whole process again.  Hmmm

I tried contacting HP support, but its like pulling teeth emailing them people.... Hopefully get an answer here???

EDIT:  It appears we are not alone.  Have a look at this thread http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/board/message?board.id=Sound&thread.id=609&view=by_date_ascending&page=1 STacSV64.exe was the cause of the hanging for me.  There is a "solution" on page 3, it never worked for me though.

Thanks for the input.  I've actually found a driver in a diiferent thread (presumably the same one) but thanks for taking the time to look.

Cheers.