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OMG....this is getting weird, some people say XP64 is crap, some say its rock solid, now I'm confused. So if that driver issue would be solved, then there would be no reason to go XP64, Win7 stand above all obv and would be my choose aswell.

*Btw, I tried a bunch of stuff to get the audio working, deleted hardware, installed just inf, every little trick that I've known so far, but really nothing helped. Audio is working, because I boot up XP and there it is, so there is nothing wrong with the chip hardware wise. Any trick how I could figure this out? Damn, should have made this post in the driver support section seem like. :D

If the sound works in Vista, then the same driver should technically work in 7. The trick would be finding what that specific driver is.

Win7 will take better advantage of your hardware than XP will, so if you can get all the driver stuff worked out, you should definitely stick with 7.

As another option, you could install Vista, get all the drivers working, and then do the update route to 7. Just a thought.

It's also possible, if hardware manufactures submitted the drivers' to Microsoft, they could also be installed from Windows update.

Hmm, I didn't see it popping up there. Intel drivers did, but not the audio.

If the sound works in Vista, then the same driver should technically work in 7. The trick would be finding what that specific driver is.

Win7 will take better advantage of your hardware than XP will, so if you can get all the driver stuff worked out, you should definitely stick with 7.

As another option, you could install Vista, get all the drivers working, and then do the update route to 7. Just a thought.

Well, the thing is...that the driver, I used in Vista is the one which I got from the website of MSI. (ofc 32bit and not 64) But it worked, completely fine even out of the box Vista, by default windows drivers. NOW on the win7 32bit it's not, I did try everything (just as suggested the driver from realtek's website) and nothing helped as I prev. sad. That's why I assumed it will impossible and a waist of time to install now the 64bit version of Win7, because it would be even harder to get the audio to make some noise....due to this issue. Personally now I think is some kind of incompatibility between the chip-driver-win7, that why only S/RDIF is recognized nothing else.

Well, I start up the laptop and will make some screenshots of data, so get a better understanding of it. OR shall i do an everest report maybe?

I have Realtek ALC888 myself and the drivers were automatically installed in Vista/7/8 without aditional software. I do agree that XP 64-bit is not the way to go, it is the first 64-bit OS from Microsoft and it is not the most stable. Back in the xp glory days, you didn't actually needed 4 gb of ram and by the time 64-bit was actually put to use it was already too late for xp 64, windows vista came with hunger for ram and 64-bit programs started to apear.... You could try XP, but I recommend installing the 32 bit version or go for vista/7.

Can you check in your BIOS for audio options? Something to the effect of enabling/disabling AC97 or HD Audio Mode (non Vista).

Wow, actually I didn't try to mess around in the BIOS, but now that you mentioned I will give it a look and see if I can see something to solve the problem.

I have Realtek ALC888 myself and the drivers were automatically installed in Vista/7/8 without aditional software. I do agree that XP 64-bit is not the way to go, it is the first 64-bit OS from Microsoft and it is not the most stable. Back in the xp glory days, you didn't actually needed 4 gb of ram and by the time 64-bit was actually put to use it was already too late for xp 64, windows vista came with hunger for ram and 64-bit programs started to apear.... You could try XP, but I recommend installing the 32 bit version or go for vista/7.

Yeah, that would be the optimal choose indeed.

Can you install AIDA64 (go to Multimedia - PCI/PnP Audio) and see exactly what audio chip you have?

I've looked into your laptop's manual and appears you have Realtek ALC 882H, although in the drivers name it says ALC888, if you can find the exact model we might be able to obtain the proper driver.

Can you install AIDA64 (go to Multimedia - PCI/PnP Audio) and see exactly what audio chip you have?

I've looked into your laptop's manual and appears you have Realtek ALC 882H, although in the drivers name it says ALC888, if you can find the exact model we might be able to obtain the proper driver.

Did AIDA32 (ofc because at the moments it's 32bit), and PCI/PnP audio part was completely blank, empty under Win7.

Installed XP 64bit (I have a tech net sub) in a virtual machine and did some testing.

You can install the Vista/7 (64 bit) version of Microsoft Security Essentials seems to install and work in XP64bit.

64bit version of Adobe Flash (current) works in the 64bit version of IE 8.

Installed XP 64bit (I have a tech net sub) in a virtual machine and did some testing.

You can install the Vista/7 (64 bit) version of Microsoft Security Essentials seems to install and work in XP64bit.

64bit version of Adobe Flash (current) works in the 64bit version of IE 8.

Damn, awesome job, good to know stuff...so XP64 isn't that "crappy" after all. :)

  • 2 months later...

Damn, awesome job, good to know stuff...so XP64 isn't that "crappy" after all. :)

Nope - XP64 was, in fact, anything but.

There were two issues with XP64: first was it's very late release (it came after Windows XP Service Pack 2, and included it) and a much more *polished* Windows Vista shipped in x64 not long afterward. (As it was, during the Great x64 Migration, the only hardware that I did NOT migrate to Vista x64 was due to driver constraints - that hardware ran XP64 just fine.)

XP64 was also a memory miser compared to Vista x64 - whereas Vista x64 pretty much demanded 2GB of RAM, XP64 could actually live with just 512MB - on par with XP32, and totally contrary to XP's rep as a RAM pig.

MSI audio drivers for Vista should work on W7 and W8. I'm using a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 driver for Vista on Windows 8.

You may need to point to the driver location instead of using the MSI installer.

You should do anything and everything possible to avoid XP x64.

  • 4 weeks later...

Nope - XP64 was, in fact, anything but.

There were two issues with XP64: first was it's very late release (it came after Windows XP Service Pack 2, and included it) and a much more *polished* Windows Vista shipped in x64 not long afterward. (As it was, during the Great x64 Migration, the only hardware that I did NOT migrate to Vista x64 was due to driver constraints - that hardware ran XP64 just fine.)

XP64 was also a memory miser compared to Vista x64 - whereas Vista x64 pretty much demanded 2GB of RAM, XP64 could actually live with just 512MB - on par with XP32, and totally contrary to XP's rep as a RAM pig.

Again....good know. :) Thanks....

MSI audio drivers for Vista should work on W7 and W8. I'm using a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 driver for Vista on Windows 8.

You may need to point to the driver location instead of using the MSI installer.

You should do anything and everything possible to avoid XP x64.

Well, I instelled the driver from the manufacturer (Realtek) and it's working perfectly. The MSI provided driver was not, that's why I didn't have audio with that.

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