m9515y Upgraded from Vista-64 with Bose Companion-5 Speakers to Win-7 Pro. Speakers silenced!

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

After a cold boot, to include a power cycle of the Bose before powering up the PC I'm back up. The device in "Devices and Printer"/Unspecified/"Bose USB Audio" shows "3-Bose USB Audio" as the default playback device, and the ONLY playback device enabled. I also disabled all (3) Recording Devices. When I use "Test" to test the Bose, so far, all passes have completed......with a caveat. There are pops and crackles every couple of seconds during the audio test. None when not playing any audio. I ran 8 passes of the "test" with the same pops and crackles interspersed with the audio. On the 9th pass, with no parameter changes anywhere, the test started to play, but with a sound that told me that it only came from the woofer. After less than 2 seconds of that, the sound went dead. Windows doesn't detect the loss of the speakers. It runs the test each time with the visual indications that leads me to believe that Windows doesn't know that the audio cut out.

I disabled the Bose in "Devices and Printers/Unspecified, power cycled the Bose without uncabling the USB cable. Windows then saw the Bose go away. When power-cycled, Windows saw the Bose come back, and disabled. I re-enabled the Bose, with all other playback and recording devices being disabled as before. I started to run the same test. I got less than one pass, pops, crackle and all, before the sound cut out completely. I'm at a loss. In the old days, I'd have gotten out a data bus analyzer to watch the traffic on the bus to see what's causing the audio "disconnect". Unfortunately, we don't have those tools of the trade for USB. Something's happening on that bus causing what I believe the Bose to get "hung" in some respects, although Windows still sees it as alive and well. Even in the "failed" state, Windows still sees the Bose as a 3-speaker device, which it is. Why it changed to a 2-speaker device earlier is beyond me. It doesn't fit in the failure pattern though.

I too have a few errands to run, and need to break away from this for awhile, and think about what I may have overlooked.

Thank you Cheryl. 

[CherylG]

I'm in and out today, errands in different directions.

Have you tried latest driver from Realtek site? Choose High Definition Audio Codecs,accept agreement, then get the "Executable" file:

http://218.210.127.131/downloads

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

Good call on the driver. I missed that in the thread. I've loaded the new driver as you suggested. I'm not sure if we're in the same place, or if things went a tad backwards. The first pass of the test got part way through, then the audio quit. I power-cycled the Bose, and the test ran 2+ passes before quitting. With nothing else on that USB Root hub, that lets the bus contention out at that level. That's not to say that it couldn't be higher up in the USB architecture. The crackling and popping when audio plays is almost indicative of some kind of contention. I have one more thought for now........be back in a few.

[CherylG]

What other usb devices do you have plugged in? On at least one other post I saw a problem caused by a WD usb hdd or the software it installs. Uninstalling the software solved his issue.

A poster at MS Answers forum posted that Bose support suggested that he plug in a usb hub and use the Bose through it.Apparently solved his problem.

There are many problems about this issue posted and just as many solutions that work for some and not others.

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

I do have a 1TB WD USB HDD in my configuration, along with a wireless USB mouse, the HP 2207h HDMI monitor with USB. My wireless mouse is connected to the monitor. I also have an APC UPS ES-750 which Win-7 recognizes. And, my original HP 5188-6077 USB keyboard. That's it. 

I didn't see the write-up about the WD USB drives possibly causing an issue, although it makes some sense. It's on a different USB root-hub. But I have to believe that the hubs come together further up in the architecture where one hub could affect another.

It's easy enough to remove the external WD HDD from the configuration. Failing to gain anything from that, I'll have to find a powered USB hub. And, wait for a potential response from Bose. I'll get back with you after I pull the WD HDD and do a cold-start.

Thanks again Cheryl.

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

I pulled the WD USB HDD from the configuration. No change following a cold start. I then disconnected the 2207 monitor's USB cable, and plugged in the wireless mouse directly into the CPU. Again, no change after a cold-start. However, I did notice something peculiar. The Windows startup wav plays crystal clear. If I log on real quick ASAP, the login wav is also very clear. If I wait as little as a minute to login, the login wav gets distorted. If I repeat, and wait longer to login, the login wav is almost inaudible. That sounds something like bus activity increasing after the initial startup causing distortion in the sound, and eventual loss. Another part of this puzzle, and I don't have a place to put this piece, is that instead of a sound being played by the audio test, or doing something to cause a wav file to play, instead of the sound, I get a loud squeal out of all 3 speakers. At first, I thought that power-cycling the Bose would clear that up. In this latest occurrence, all I had to do is throw another wav file at the speakers, and the squeal ceased. I have NO idea what that's all about. I haven't been able to find a repeatable sequence to cause that squeal. 

The last experiment after a cold start was to login ASAP when cold-booted, and try to play a music wav file. It initially started to be almost halfway decent, but rapidly deteriorated to the point where it seemed like all the higher frequencies were being filtered out. The sound deteriorated to a dull "rumble with the pops and cracks, and then quit entirely. That whole experiment from the login until the music wav file went silent took less than 30 seconds. I keep going back to the "old days" on DEC and Compaq systems that would have a device that basically "ate" up the bandwidth of the I/O bus causing devices on that bus to fail. I realize that this is probably apples and oranges. But there is a lot of similarity given the symptom. A the PC gets busier after startup, the audio deteriorates to zero. But then again, the Vista OS disk works in all respects as the system was originally configured with the Bose, the WD USB HDD.........all else. The only difference is a new SATA 1TB HDD, and a new OS loaded on it. I haven't tried to boot the Vista OS disk since the driver updates were installed. I'll try that after I conclude here. If that still works as before, with the original devices configured, then I'm lost. All my years in DEC, Compaq, and HPFS aren't giving me an answer, other than "old" hardware theory, and experience-based conclusions. I have a feeling that the answer lies very close to where we've been. I just don't see it....yet anyway.

I'll advise on the results of the Vista boot after I restore my hardware configuration to what it was. But don't hold your breath. Vista takes roughly 10 minutes to boot! Win-7 takes well less than a minute.

Thank you again Cheryl.

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

I did a cold-start with the Vista Home Premium OS disk, after restoring my hardware configuration. I erred when I stated that I hadn't booted the Vista OS since the driver updates. I was thinking FIRMWARE drivers on the system board. My bad on that one.

With Vista up, I can play music files with no issues whatsoever. I'm now back on the Win-7 Pro OS disk. Same sound symptom(s).

Just FYI, when I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on 5/15, the Bose was identified as a "Generic USB Audio device........"Compatible", so the report says. If I back into supported products using specific devices such as "Bose", 3 Bose audio devices are displayed and categorized as "No information". Two different ways to "advise" with 2 different results for the Bose hardware. 

I'm at a loss Cheryl. It's hard to use a high-end PC with HD tuner to watch HD TV and HD movies.....but no sound. Granted I could move all of my music files to a different platform, and load XP. I'm sure that would solve playing music files okay. But it doesn't solve the inability to watch HD TV and movies on THIS platform.

I can't thank you enough for all the time that you've put into this effort, with no happy ending. Your efforts can't go unrecognized though. Having been on your side of the fence, I understand the importance of customer-satisfaction surveys. If you can send me one, or a pointer to a survey, I'll do everything I can to be sure that you DO get recognized.......in a positive way. I believe that if I check the Kudos box, that will mislead other users into thinking that the problem got solved. Correct me if I'm wrong. You did all you could, as far as I'm concerned. I can only hope that Bose responds with a solution. Or, a software "blitz" comes out from Microsoft or HP addressing the problem. After all, the speaker system cost more than twice what the PC system package cost. That's hard to ignore, especially when it did work prior to the Win-7 upgrade.

Many thanks again Cheryl.

[CherylG]

Well, this has been quite a day of trial and error for you, and with no good results.Sorry we haven't found the magic bullet.With so many people reporting this problem it is surprising that no solution has been found. Since you purchased Windows 7 it does entitle you to support from MS. Have you considered contacting them?

Good luck with the issue.If I run across anything that looks promising I will reply back here later.

As for a survey, they appear in a popup on the site occasionally. Kudos are the main way we are rated as to our helpfulness.Kudos don't  indicate a problem is solved, it is only when you click the button at bottom of a reply "Accept as Solution" that the problem is considered solved and a big check mark will be applied to the thread.

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

I had the opportunity to buy Win-7 Pro at a reduced price. It's an OEM version. As  understand it, that limits how much support I can get directly from Microsoft. The paths I've tried to go in have resulted in a response that I would get billed for that "service". I'll explore that a bit more. Somebody has to be able to shake their trees on issues that would be escalated.

I'm still holding ou hopes for a response from Bose. I'll call if I need to, or use their online chat.......it's something. I do believe that we've collected a lot of data on the problem. It's just not like years past where we could drill down to the 1's and 0's level to see what's really going on.

Many thanks again Cheryl. I'll keep my eyes open for a survey. I tried to go back to put Kudos in for you throughout the thread. Unfortunately, that function is locked out. You deserve MANY Kudos for hanging in there with me on this. Take care.

[TommyP]

Cheryl,

I have the Bose working now, although I'm not sure of the sequence of events that finally let the pieces fall into place. For the following, I was using a music CD as a source for the audio.

The Bose had been configured as the "Default Communications Device. That's how Windows configured it. That puzzled me for awhile until I recalled that the puck has BOTH audio input and output jacks. Made sense now! I juggled the configuration around such that the Digital Audio (HDMI) was the default communications device, and the Bose just the default audio device. Whether this had an impact later, I'm not sure. But at least I was able to get some sputtering audio to play, but not losing it as had been happening previously. 

All along the Bose was showing up under one of 6 USB Root Hubs. It uses a whopping 57% of the available bandwidth of the configured Root Hub. I reviewed all of the USB Root Hubs, and disabled any that didn't have any devices attached, and also Root hubs that had a device that wasn't critical to basic system operation. Some hubs have some percentage of bandwidth reserved for the system. That adds up at an upper layer, I suppose. When I started disabling some at random, I noticed that what sound I was getting at the time was improving. Also, during the bus elimination process, I also checked the box in the USB Root Hubs Properties/Power Management tab to allow the system to turn the USB power off to save power. This seems to be a global setting across all 6 root hubs.. I probably shouldn't have made the 2 changes at the same time........basic rule.  If that in itself  had an impact, I'm not sure. At this point, I took a long break break to do other things.. The system went to sleep 3 hours later as it's set up to do..

When I woke up the system, I used a CD again to continue troubleshooting. When I started the CD, the audio started playing NORMALLY!! I went back to the USB configuration and found the Bose to be listed as a "USB Composite Device". It had disappeared from the 6 root hubs entirely, even the one I left enabled. Logically, I suppose the bandwidth required may have made a difference on how it was configured since I only had one USB Root Hub enabled for the keyboard.

I re-enabled the rest of the USB Root Hubs, but have not rebooted or performed a cold start. I'm unsure how the system will configure itself from a cold start. I have to believe that if the Bose gets configured under one of the 6 USB Root Hubs, I'll be back to square-one. But I know what to look for now. The change from being the "Default Composite Device" to the "Default Audio" device may in itself played a part. Only when the USB configuration got juggled around did the Bose finally start to work, following a "nap" after the above changes.

The next step is to reboot, and see how things shake out. If that works, I'll do a cold start of the system after a power cycle of the Bose. I'll advise on my findings. But I think we're on the right track now. This is the first time that the system did not configure the Bose on a USB Root Hub, for whatever reason. That seems to be key. Now if I can "lock" in the configuration..