DV7t-6000 CTO only 2 speakers work. Windows 10.

[Captain_Arcain]

I have a DV7t-6000 CTO laptop with Beats Audio. The system has 4 speakers and a subwoofer, yet only the two speakers at the back work. I have tried:

1. Installing literally every other IDT High Definition Audio driver I could get my hands on.

     a. Of those that "work", none of which present either a 4.1 or quad channel option.

     b. None of which have the "speaker fill" option.

2. Checked/reset BIOS settings.

3. Swapped out the motherboard / speakers.

This is a core i7 2820 system with hybrid Intel/AMD graphics.

Sound works on the two rear speakers with the default Microsoft drivers. Also works the same way with the HP IDT driver set for Windows 8.1 with the addition of the Beats Audio control panel, but again, no options for either quad channel or speaker fill.

Everything else works like a charm aside from the Webcam, which is either dead or has a bad cable. (Ordered).

Help? 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Since I don't know what drivers you tried, the only 'real' W10 IDT driver for notebooks is this one...

6.10.6492.0 

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp71501-72000/sp71886.exe

Restart the PC after installing the driver.

If the above driver doesn't work, I don't have any other suggestions to offer.

[Captain_Arcain]

I "think" I have tried this one already, but to be honest at this point I've tried so many that I don't remember. I'll try this one and report the results.

Is anyone else having this issue? Is it just me?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

None of the dv7 model series is supported by HP for W10, and yes, many, many forum members have issues with getting the audio to work properly on W10 on dv6 and dv7 notebooks that have the IDT audio chip.

I had a problem myself on a much newer notebook than yours when I upgraded from W8.1 to W10.

Fortunately, that driver worked for my HP 350 G1 business notebook.

For some reason after the driver installed, it set the PC headphones as the default output device, so I had no sound coming from the speakers.

When I saw that happened, I changed the setting for the PC speakers to be the default output device and it has worked fine ever since.

[Captain_Arcain]

Sadly, the sp71886 driver also appears to not work.

The same problem persists where only two speakers work but with the addition of the audio cutting out whenever the intensity of the music is too loud. Reducing the volume down to about 30 alleviates the cut-out, but the music is then barely audible.

Rolled back to the default MS drivers and the audio is now back to what it was with only 2-channel sound and no subwoofer. This is a real bummer. I'd love to have the use of the subwoofer, at least, but it seems I may be out of luck... (Or I'll have to downgrade to Windows 8.1, LOL!)

[Captain_Arcain]

I should also add that I did try using Linux on this laptop as well (Linux Mint 20). There is a similar issue where only the two rear speakers work, however, there is an application that allows you to tinker with the other speakers. I was able to produce sound through the other speakers and the subwoofer with this method, although not all at the same time. So, I do know that they are at least capable of emitting sound.

What a strange thing it is that they would have omitted a 4 speaker option from the windows driver. If I had the coding chops to hack the driver, I would totally do that but alas, driver coding is something I have no experience with...