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Issues - Sound SW & External USB Devices

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Old 06-10-2008   #1 (permalink)
True North Strong


  Fiddlehead50 is offline

Issues - Sound SW & External USB Devices

I have a new Vista Home Premium Laptop (Acer Aspire 7520), purchased about 6 weeks ago. I've come across two problems, and I believe they are related.

First, whenever I hook up a USB device, such as external speakers or headset, as soon as I unplug them and return to the laptop speakers, the sound is lost altogether, and I need to uninstall the sound driver and reboot - which triggers a fix from Microsoft - to restore sound from my laptop speakers. I originally had RealTek sound drivers, but this process, undertaken a few times now, has resulted in a switch to a generic High Definition Audio Device, auto-installed from Microsoft on reboot.

Second, I downloaded SoundTap Recorder. When I tried to enable it, the silence was deafening. Even when I subsequenty disabled the new app, the laptop speakers were silent, and the little megaphone in the taskbar was showing mute, even though I tried to restore sound. So I had to uninstall Sound Tap, and this restored the laptop sound without a system reboot.

The Acer Helpdesk has recommended restoring the system to earlier settings and/or a full factory restore, but with the time (days!) I have invested in setting up my new laptop with various applications, I don't want to take such a drastic and comprehensive approach to the problem unless I am sure it is going to work.
Old 06-10-2008   #2 (permalink)
johngalt's Avatar
Antidisestablishmentarian


  johngalt is offline

Re: Issues - Sound SW & External USB Devices

Well, did the sound have issues before or not - if it was working fine then it should work fine again when you revert to a system restore point.

But, I want to know this - you say when you remove USB devices - are any of those devices showing in the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in your system tray, and if so, are you safely removing them as you should?
Old 06-10-2008   #3 (permalink)
True North Strong


  Fiddlehead50 is offline

Re: Issues - Sound SW & External USB Devices

Well, let's put it this way: as soon as I unplugged the external speakers, the problem arose. Same with the headphones. However, I should do the "safely remove hardware" thing, which I am careful to do with my ipod and other memory-keys. For some reason, I thought I could get away without doing that for speakers and headset.
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