Using a gateway mx6421 laptop, installed a 7200rpm hitachi hd to improve performance over the old 4200rpm from the factory. retinstalled windows xp media center, downloaded all drivers from gateway for the mx6421. the drive is much faster and everything works fine with the exception of the audio. the audio driver "fails" during installation. the conexant driver i am using is specific for this laptop model from gateway's website. if i swap out the new drive and use the old one with all the preinstalled software and drivers the sound works fine. but under no circumstances can i get the sound to work with the new drive. i contacted gateways tech support and they were of no help. does anyone have any idea what is wrong? any help would be very much appreciated. thanks.

First, try going to the Windows update site and it MAY have a driver update for you.

If Not...

Was your last OS Media Center? If so...

Right Click MY COMPUTER and choose PROPERTIES

This will open the system properties window.

Click the HARDWARE tab

Next choose DEVICE MANAGER

Under SOUND VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLLERS

find your audio drivers and RIGHT CLICk, choose the DRIVER tab

Next click DRIVER DETAILS this will tell you where the existing (working) driver resides)

Go get the file tiger and drop it into your new drive.

Case closed.

KillerNotebooks,

Like mp33, I have a Gateway MX6421 Laptop that came with Windows Media Center. Mine also fails to load the audio driver. I tried to view the driver details, but get the message "No driver files are required or have not been loaded for this device." Case still open.

Spanky

ALL Gateway Driver Download page for this notebook.

It is about 1/2 way down under audio drivers.

KillerNotebooks,

Thanks for the link, but the problem is the driver doesn't work when you install it. I've discovered the problem is the driver needs to be installed manually. I opened the driver installation wizard and then did the have disk option and pointed to the driver. The driver installed manually and now I have sound. mp33, let me know if this works for you too.

Spanky

Spanky... do you think you can elaborate on how exactly you did this.

I reformated the hard drive and installed all the drivers, but the audio one failed. Two tech support calls were both unsuccessful. I have the Gateway MX6421 too.

Downlaod the driver from the link I posted above.
Unzip the contents to a folder on your hard drive I will call for the sake of instruction C:\Audio Driver

Right Click MY COMPUTER
Choose Properties

Click HARDWARE tab

Click DEVICE MANAGER tab

Choose Sound, video and game controllers

Right click the device in question

Choose Update Driver

The wizard will ask you, "Can windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?"
Click No
Click Next

It will ask "What do you want the wizard to do?"
Click "Install from a list or specific location"
Click "Next"

Click the check box "Include this location in the search"
Click browse and browse to the location of the driver (in this explanation it was C:\Audio Driver".

Complete the wizard and you have manually installed the driver.

hello Killer.

Ok to get fixed you have to do following those steps.
Fist in my computer, right click and go properties, hardware, device managment, and look where is your uninstall deviced, with yellow warring ?. Right click on it and go to, NO, not this time.
And go next. and than go Install from a list specification location.
Next go to Don't search. I will choose the drivers to install.
Next go and look for you audio deviced and after that you will get another windows screen and show you Manufacturer and chose Conecant and you will see for the model next to it, on the model box. BUT YOU NEED YOUR DRIVERS TO BE IN YOUR HDD, AND CLICK NEXT AND YOU WILL SEE ONE WINDOWS AND WILL ASK YOU ABOUT cm6 something like that and than go to directory and find that file and clik open next if you have any pup up windows click yes and you will have sound card installed just wait untill finished.

thx Selim/Kosovo
seli_gl@yahoo.com

Ok, here's how I got the sound to work on the MX6421 with XP Media Center. Download the driver and extract it to the Cabs folder (it'll do this automatically). Run the Setup.exe which is in c:\cabs\D00377-002-001 folder. This will not get the sound to work but will get windows to at least see the driver later down. Here is the link to the driver...

http://support.gateway.com/support [...] =177779200

Go to Device Manager (see above posts on how to get there), click on the "multimedia audio controller", click "reinstall driver", click "no, not this time" on the wizard that comes up, check the "install from a list..." and click Next. Click "don't search..." and click Next. Scroll down to "Sound, Video, and Game controllers" and double click on it. Click on Conexant in the left pane and click on "conexant ac-link audio" in the right panel and click Next. You'll get a message saying "installing this driver is not recommended...", click Yes. It may ask to locate a file, if so browse to the c:\cabs folder referenced above. And that's it, sound should now work.

Thank you so much guys.. finally I got it! The key is to install Conexant driver instead of the recommended Realtek.

Thanks a lot!

Wow.... This solution actually WORKED! I reinstalled XP Home on a Gateway MX6438 and was stuck on this problem. I looked everywhere for this solution. Thanks for saving the small amount of hair I have.

Whoa it worked. Thank you very much m8!!