Vista problems - disappearing driver

[Finn]

Oh lordy, it starts..

Today I had to support a friend who bought a new Asus barebone system prebuilt from a local vendor. They claim the box is fine but when the client takes it home it no longer has audio and it's slower than life (which is a Vista feature naturally). Client takes the box to be fixed, they claim it's ok but still no audio at home.

So I remote in the box and start looking. First annoyance - the vnc gets crapped every time UAC pops in. Have to restart session each time when making the mistake of trying to change the simpliest of settings! Joy! This enhances my productivity tenfold as I have to do 10x the work to fix things.

After fighting with the vnc I finally dig into the root of the problem - missing audio drivers. The box naturally comes with no Vista drivers so off to the web to download some. In goes spanky new Vista drivers and whaddayaknow pure clean audio is produced in full 5.1!

Try a reboot, got audio all is fine.

Logoff.

1 more reboot later - Vista POOFTED the driver like magic - no more audio. Joy!

Anyone ran into this kind of a problem before?

 

[calebb]

Oh lordy, it starts..

Today I had to support a friend who bought a new Asus barebone system prebuilt from a local vendor. They claim the box is fine but when the client takes it home it no longer has audio and it's slower than life (which is a Vista feature naturally). Client takes the box to be fixed, they claim it's ok but still no audio at home.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/performance.mspx

Check this out - Vista is actually very fast compared to legacy Windows operating systems due to features like Superfetch.

So I remote in the box and start looking. First annoyance - the vnc gets crapped every time UAC pops in. Have to restart session each time when making the mistake of trying to change the simpliest of settings! Joy! This enhances my productivity tenfold as I have to do 10x the work to fix things.

After fighting with the vnc I finally dig into the root of the problem - missing audio drivers. The box naturally comes with no Vista drivers so off to the web to download some. In goes spanky new Vista drivers and whaddayaknow pure clean audio is produced in full 5.1!

Try a reboot, got audio all is fine.

Logoff.

1 more reboot later - Vista POOFTED the driver like magic - no more audio. Joy!

Anyone ran into this kind of a problem before?

msconfig -> tools -> disable UAC.

If you really hate it that much disable it... In my case, I just click ok for a few days until Vista has adjusted to my usage - and then it stops bugging me.

Try checking the manufacturer's website for up-to-date drivers. I bet the employees at the store used the beta drivers included on the CD. I have an Asus p5K Deluxe and the drivers from asususa.com work like a champ.

 

[Finn]

As said I downloaded the latest non-beta drivers directly from Asus so no help there.. The barebone had no Vista drivers at all delivered with the CD.

And I don't hate UAC so much, it's just useless and disables my remote session, that's all. I guess I'll have to go through yet another unnecessary step (of disabling UAC) each time I have to remote manage someone.