I've been working on a friends laptop a gateway mx6438 for a few days now and all was going well until I couldn't get the Audio driver to install correctly. I just recently formatted the machine myself and installed a different copy of windows XP (the restore disk and other disks that came with the system were never returned by a previous tech). So now i've been recommended by gateway several different things including realtek drivers, to some conexant ac-link audio driver. I'm running out of options here and I dont really want to have to pay gateway 20$ for a drivers disk. Any ideas?

u did not state any thing else about the machine so I am guessing, go to Gateway and download the drivers for that intigrated sound card.

u might want to give us the model of that laptop to.

http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/...008901nv.shtml


edit: looks like that came with Vista! If so, you are facing what many people are, incompatible OS and mobo chips when trying to downgrade.

Their Tech then would be trying to stear you to somewhere else since they wouldn't either have a clue what you could do or were afraid to damage yiour comp with their advice.

I am listening to Shiny Toy Guns on a brand new install of XP Pro SP3...

It was a real pain to get the audio to work, but I found out how.

If you go to the device manager, right click the audio controller, and click update driver, then select the location yourself and install from a list of drivers and choose conexant, it will work. You will have to locate 2 files which should come with the standard dell driver.

I'm glad that approach worked well for you.

But is always best to learn where to look for the latest drivers from the right vendors vs. using microsoft update which doesn't always pick the best match.

Of course, microsoft update is still best alternative if you're only other choice is "Drivers? I don't have a clue where to find drivers" So now is a good time to go learn to find them and check them yourself.

You must have not understood me. To get these drivers to work, download the drivers from the website that they give you. The installation doesn't work however, so you have to select Conexant from the list, and choose the file gateway gives you.

I'm not a noob I know how to look up drivers from the vendor haha.