Windows 10 and Sound Cards - starting to get the hump with 10 now

[scaryjim]

On Win 7 there was an issue where trying to test the AMD HD Audio output would give you an error message saying the service was already in use, and it was a complete pain to sort out. I think I ended up rolling back the driver to the default MS one - the AMD provided one just wouldn't work consistently.

[Zak33]

At the moment it's working

so it's possible this is fixed

however, klets be assured of something... if I/you were to build a PC for someone else, would you dare use Win10 if this was a remote possibility on a regular basis?

I wouldn't

If I built my father, or friend a PC and the sound stopped working every day... it would be a disaster. It's not like we're losing 8x Anti Aliasing Over Sampling in a single game. Or the CUDA isn't quite cutting the mustard in rendering and it's taking 2 minutes longer to encode a film.

It's SOUND!

Bit worried.

[scaryjim]

... if I/you were to build a PC for someone else, would you dare use Win10 if this was a remote possibility on a regular basis? ...

Frankly it doesn't matter what OS you use, something like this is *always* a possibility. Back when I actually got paid for this kind of thing I built an office computer for a client and a couple of months later they started complaining that "the CD player wasn't working properly" (don't you just love fault reports from people with no technical knowledge!). Took twenty minutes of messing to identify that the problem was a dodgy sound driver that had auto-updated.

And as I said, my problem with the AMD HDMI audio was on Win 7, not Win 10.

I'd absolutely build other people computers with Windows 10: I'd just be very careful about what hardware I put in them and what drivers I installed (although persuading Win 10 to not auto-update drivers might be a consideration at that point).

[peterb]

Frankly it doesn't matter what OS you use, something like this is *always* a possibility. Back when I actually got paid for this kind of thing I built an office computer for a client and a couple of months later they started complaining that "the CD player wasn't working properly" (don't you just love fault reports from people with no technical knowledge!). Took twenty minutes of messing to identify that the problem was a dodgy sound driver that had auto-updated.

And as I said, my problem with the AMD HDMI audio was on Win 7, not Win 10.

I'd absolutely build other people computers with Windows 10: I'd just be very careful about what hardware I put in them and what drivers I installed (although persuading Win 10 to not auto-update drivers might be a consideration at that point).

Many reasons there why I won't generally build Windows based computers for anyone else, at least not on a paid for basis. You are a support hostage to fortune, and whatever updates or additional software the end user installs - you just don't have the control. So you either price in support costs (which becomes uncompetitive, unless you have a good reputation for customer service) or just take the risk that most machines will be trouble free - which works if you are doing a lot.

*nix based servers/desktop PCs are another matter. You have pretty much complete control over the build, and what updates are applied and when, and generally the software that is installed.

[Zak33]

all the Win7 systems I have "out there in the wild" are rock solid

[Zak33]

I honestly thought that taking the AMD HDMI driver out had mended it....but I just had a total silence after pausing music on Media Player.. then the "You've unplugged your plug from my socket" message


bored now

I truly do need sound to work in 2016

[scaryjim]

I honestly thought that taking the AMD HDMI driver out had mended it....but I just had a total silence after pausing music on Media Player.. then the "You've unplugged your plug from my socket" message...

Check Windows update hasn't reinstalled the AMD HDMI driver ... it has a nasty habit of doing things like that....

[Saracen]

....

Win10 is dragging me backwards into a world of not knowing what's on my PC

Well quite. At the risk of, perhaps, repeating myself, this is one of the things I dislike, on principle, about W10.

Though, to be fair, sound cards have a history of being a pain, back to the days of QEMM and messing about with config.sys. I thought more recent versions, especially W7-era, had consigned that to the rubbish bin.

My real concern with (this aspect of) W10 is that I, as the system owner, lose control over what is and is not installed, and silent, background updates can take place whenever the hell MS feel like, and never mind what effect it might have on hardware I have installed that they hadn't considered.

Tempting though it is to blame this on W10, even I have to admit I've had similar experiences of Windows in various versions to play "now it works, but now it doesn't" simply because of something changing under the bonnet as part of normal system operation. Sometimes I found out what it was, but often, if a cursory look doesn't highlight the culprit, it's quicker to format and restore a system image than to spend hours, or days, hunting the cockup, only to end up doing a format/restore anyway.

So, even I won't sneer too much at W10 as this may be nothing to do with it. BUT .... the auto-update aspect of W10 does leave us wide open to issues of this type, which is a major reason why I refuse to use it.

[Thorsson]

I have an old Asus Xonar D2X card. I manually updated the drivers after installing Windows 10 and have never had a problem with it. Device Manager says they're 10.0.10240.16384 dated 09/07/15. I did have problems with it in Win 7, although I managed to eventually fix them.

As for sound card problems, nothing today compares to some of those old sound blaster drivers.

[Zak33]

Check Windows update hasn't reinstalled the AMD HDMI driver ... it has a nasty habit of doing things like that....

but I'm using AMD drivers...no Windows for graphics

PLEASE tell me Win10 cant just stick an HDMI driver from Microsoft into my AMD driver set?

[scaryjim]

... PLEASE tell me Win10 cant just stick an HDMI driver from Microsoft into my AMD driver set?

No, but it might recognise that you've got an AMD HDMI audio device installed without a driver, at which point it might helpfully install the missing AMD driver for you. Or did you just disable the HDMI audio device, rather than uninstalling it?

[Zak33]

I uninstalled the driver for it from AMD Crimson.....

maybe I should hunt it down in Hardware and shoot it

[Zak33]

ok.. shot

see if it gets up and Walking Dead's me....

cos I am KARL!!! Hat and a hard Dad from Teachers......

[Zak33]

it's just died again

doesn't show in Device Manager and this time a Win roll back failed too

maybe my motherboard sound card is too old to be worthy of Win10

[Zak33]

anyone got a PCI or PCI express sound card suggestion?

bored of having an unreliable PC

[chuckskull]

Another vote for Xonar. I have a DGX on win 10 with no problems. Using the standard ASUS drivers, never tried the UNi stuff so can't comment on Kal's issues.