Video card for Dell Dimension 8300 compatible with Windows 7?

[radhak]

Audio card for Dell Dimension 8300 compatible with Windows 7?

Hello everybody! Fresh member, and glad to be here !

Lemme start with a problem I am hoping somebody here can help me with :

Last weekend I upgraded my Dell Dimension 8300 to Windows 7. After some work, finally I am left with just one compatibility issue : it came with the SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio card, and I am unable to find drivers for it that work with Windows 7.

I searched online, and found a few others have hit this problem and even suggested solutions, which didn't work for me. I am guessing I will simply have to bite the bullet and buy a replacement audio card?

Problem is, how do I make sure that an Audio card is compatible with both the hardware (Dell Dimension 8300) and the software (Win 7)?

I am not a gamer, so am not looking for the best-of-the-best; just something that allow me to play songs and video.

And yes, the 'integrated' in the existing card's name - does it mean I cannot remove it? or it is integrated with something else (video card)? Will that be an issue?

thanks!
- radhak

 

[DjKraid]

Welcome!

you can try DriverEasy and see if it finds any working drivers(?) it was recommended to me also here on TechSpot so now I pass it on for me it works really good, the only down side with the free version of the program is that the download is really slow (limited to 8-20kbps).

Do you mean you want to remove the integrated wound card? -basically everything that is "integrated" can be disabled (in the bios) but not removed. If you get an other sound card and install it then most likely the bios will automatically disable the integrated sound card.

 

[radhak]

Thanks for the quick response - and that DriverEasy was great tip. I found out that many of my drivers could be updated, and shall be doing so soon.

Unfortunately, while it identified and installed a driver for the audio (it says it is Realtek AC/97 instead of what Belarc told me was SoundMax), it did not give me back my audio. The only difference is that now the yellow '!' is not visible... :-(

 

[DjKraid]

have you tried all the "audio" plugs (line in / out / mic / whatnat)? -does the device manager say that "This device is working properly."? -can you update the driver from the device manager? -have you rebooted?

 

[radhak]

I did reboot, but you do have good points : my speaker is the dell sound bar that attaches to the monitor which in turn connects to the audio outlets on the back; so I should double-check these are in place. Shall do later in the day.

 

[Zilpha]

This reminds me of an issue with the Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) High Definition Audio bus ...

Might want to look into installing those drivers first, and then installing drivers on the manufacturer's website. You didn't specify whether you had tried installing drivers and they didn't work or just couldn't find any, so it's just a stab in the dark.

 

[radhak]

I checked - the speakers work fine outside of windows 7. I booted with a LiveCD Linux, and the audio in there is perfect, as it should be. This tells me that the connections et al are all right, just does not work in Windows 7.

The drivers installed by DriverEasy is acknowledged by the sytem, and says works fine - but not really.

I am unable to find the 'manufacturer' for this card, so do not have their drivers for it...

I am guessing I will have buy a replacement sound card.

So I can simply buy any PCI card and it should replace this card, right? I checked today that the sound card seems easily pried out. Or is the graphics card merged with it (the 'integrated' part)?