Compaq C500
HD Audio Installation
The first thing to do with a new laptop
is remove Windows Vista and replace it with XP Professional.
One problem with a fresh install is, the
retail XP Professional cdrom does not have the Micrsosoft Universal
Audio Archtecture software on the disk. After you complete a
fresh installation, you will see a broken device "High Definition
Audio Controller" in the Device Manager, identified as VEN_8086
and DEV_27D8. This is the Intel hardware portion of UAA. As of
this writing, the Microsoft web site talks about UAA drivers,
but does not make them available for public download. You have
to find the drivers elsewhere.
As of this writing, there are three letter
versions (A, B, C) and multiple sub-versions of the UAA drivers.
Two generic installations can be found on support.intel.com
by searching for UAA. The larger file, UAA.ZIP, is a multi-language
installer. The smaller file is for USA only. Searching www.hp.com
for "UAA" returns a number of UAA articles and SoftPaqs.
The Microsoft knowledge base details file versions and dates
for the most current files.
The UAA installer is stupid. It does not
remove previous or failed installations, nor does it repair an
installation. It just runs, says everything is fine, and you
can still have a broken "High Definition Audio Controller"
entry in the Device Manager | System Devices section. The trick
is finding and deleting all normal and hidden files matching
"hda*" from the Windows directories before running
the UAA installer. The UAA package will then install and the
High Definition Audio Controller will no longer be broken.
- Hdaprop.dll
- Hdashcut.exe
- Hdaudbus.sys
- Hdaudio.sys
- Hdaudres.dll
- Portcls.sys
UAA must be installed before Sound and
Modem drivers.
After finding a combination that worked,
I restored the virgin machine from a Ghost image and do it this
way:
- SP32395, Compaq UAA v1.00C
- SP35270, Conexant HD Audio
- SP35272, Conexant HD Modem
Download
the SoftPaqs from HP
These files will install correctly using
the Setup.Exe present in each SoftPaq. I did not run the SoftPaq
directly, but instead unpacked them to specific directories where
I want them.
Many thanks to the internet community in
general and all the smart guys that live there. It took two days,
but I was able to glean enough information from various sources
to arrive at a working solution. The HP support crew was clueless,
but this should come as no surprise. They evidently don't have
this problem in their Bangalore Books. I am surprised, considering
how much air play this problem gets all over the internet.
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