HP 6550b - no AHCI and Audio under Win XP SP3

[Quinto2002]

Product: VZ245AV

OS: WinXP SP3 (32bit)

Pre1:

An former WinVista to Win7 Update worked fine. No Issues there.

Pre2:

Installed Win XP Sp1 from CD. Installed Sp3. Installed Drivers from the HP Support page. Chipset, Graphic, Network. All fine.

Issues under Win XP SP3:

1. no AHCI Driver avaiable. I can only use the Notebook in IDE-Mode.

2. Audio driver: the IDT-high-definition-Driver (HP: SP48147) didn't finish the installation (Hardware not found - that Code 10 Error in the device manager). Deinstalling MS UAA and installing MS KB888111 or KB835221 did not help. I also tried to deinstall MS UAA and install HP: SP33867 but it also doesn't work.

Hopefully somebody could help?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

It is my understanding that it is easier to get the audio to work in XP SP1or SP2 by first installing the MSUAA driver, restarting the PC, and then installing the IDT audio driver.

SP3 is supposed to have the MSUAA driver already, so it is not required and installing it normally does nothing.

You have to know how to install XP with the drive controller set to AHCI by either slipstreaming the required SATA drivers, or putting them on a USB FDD and installing them when you are asked to press the F6 key during the Windows XP setup script.

Otherwise you have to install in IDE mode, install the required AHCI driver by updating the Intel IDE drive controller in the device manager, restarting the PC, going into the BIOS, enable AHCI mode, and then XP will work in AHCI mode.

Once in AHCI mode, XP will install some more drivers, requiring you to restart the PC again.

I have zipped up and attached the required drivers below.  They are on your notebook's support page, but you have to pull them out of the Intel RST driver package.

Now if you are going to use the last method or the F6 USB FDD method to install the driver, you have to pick the exact driver you need.

Here are the rough instructions for installing the AHCI driver when the PC is in IDE mode...

1. Set the drive controller (in BIOS) to IDE mode.

2. Install XP as usual.

3. Install the drivers for the Intel chipset and restart the PC.

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp48001-48500/sp48432.exe

4. Unzip the SATA AHCI driver file I attached, and save it where you know where to find it.

5. Go to Start>>Run>>devmgmt.msc>>IDE ATA/ATAPI controller

    >>5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port controller

6. Update manually from with "have disk" option, browse to the AHCI driver folder I gave you>iaAHCI setup information file.

7. Select the Intel(R) 5 Series 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller

     Windows will warn it's not compatible. Install it anyway.

8. Reboot the computer, go into the BIOS, and set the drive controller (in BIOS) to SATA AHCI mode

9. Windows will load some more drivers, it will ask you to restart the PC, and then you are good to go.

I would do the SATA controller stuff first, then do the audio driver.

You should be able to do everything in SP1.

[Quinto2002]

Hi Paul.

Thank you. AHCI is now working.

Audio: If i deinstall the device in devicemanager and do a hardware search it is detected as IDT High Definition Audio CODEC. But the installation failed. If i install sp48147 from the supportpage it fails with the message: The detected hardware is not supoorted by this software package. Installation canceled.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Unfortunately, I don't know why the IDT audio isn't working for you.

In SP1  and SP2, normally you install the Intel chipset driver.

That gets the HD audio bus to show up.  Then you install the MS UAA driver and that installs the HD audio bus.

Then you install the audio driver restart the PC, and in a perfect world, that should have done it.

But that issue is something that I won't be able to help you with, because it was supposed to have worked.

[Quinto2002 · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul.

Finally i could fix the problem by myself.

Windows or the Intel chipsetdriverpackage somehow installed an hidden service AESTaud at the first startup. When starting the IDT Audio driver setup from the HP support page it runs until it would like to add that service. Error: "Failed to create service "AESTAud". Error 1078: The name is already in use as servicename or servicedisplayname.".

You find this error only in the setupapi.log under C:\Windows\ and if you know the hardware ID which you can find via Start | Run -> msinfo32 -> Components -> Problem Devices (PNP hardware ID)



Solution:
- open the registry
- go to HKLM/SYSTEM/CurrentControllSet\Services
- delete the keys "AESTaud"/"AEaud" and "STHDA"
- restart
- install the driver
or
- extract drive package
- install driver via devicemanager - driverupdate - have disk ect.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Glad you got the sound to work.

I would never have figured that out in a million years.