Empty Realtek Sound Manager folder. Correct? No surround sound!

[Guest]

Have spent the last few days putting everything on my refurbished laptop,
including a stack of music creation programs, only to find that my 5.1
surround sound (I have Realtek AC’97 drivers) on here now seems to have
messed up. The only way I discovered that was because I was downloading the
demo version of Cakewalk Sonar Producer edition and it takes you to another
page and one of the links on there was for a surround sound test. Now I
remember this working great before, but now I find that all the sounds, which
are supposed to be coming through different speakers are all coming through
the same, just like normal stereo. And it’s annoying me no end.

I’ve noticed other odd things too, conflicting info in Windows that says a
driver is working in one place for my TV Studio suite, and that it isn’t even
installed elsewhere. I’m REALLY angry.

And when I go looking for my Realtek Sound Manager folder in Program Files I
find it is empty, even though I’ve tried reinstalling the drivers several
times, and my brother, who has a normal PC not a laptop though, has some
tests that I wanted to try in that folder. I say again. So MAD here.

So if any of you tech wizards out there have any bright ideas on how to
solve my problem, or even why this has happened, help PLEASE!

If it wasn’t for the fact that this damn thing keeps me in touch with the
world, I think I’d have thrown it out the window by now. I mean other people
have a life. I don’t these days cos of this hunk of junk. Grrrrr!

Help please! I'm desperate!

Ali

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You need different drivers.

 

[Guest]

What do you mean? I have tried reinstalling the drivers and these drivers
are the ones I need to run my system. Do you mean I need different drivers
to use Cakewalk? I don't understand. You didn't give me much info to go on
here.

 

[frodo]

the realtek drivers for their AC97 chipset are currently in a state of
flux. Drivers after version 3.62 have been very flaky as they rewrote
the 3D engine portion to support newer chipsets, and busted the AC97
"environment" stuff.

Revert to realtek driver 3.62 (by doing an uninstall then install), that
should fix things up.

You will have to google around for 3.62 (since Realtek only offers their
latest, 3.68), but several OEM sites still have it posted (ABIT is one).

Good Luck.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm, thanks for the info Frodo, but I’m not sure what driver version I do
have. I am running this on a laptop you see, not a normal PC, and I can’t
update the soundcard or anything. When I go into the Realtek AC’97 Audio
Properties>Driver it says I’m running version 5.10.0.4080. Am I running a
different thing to what you are talking about? How do I find out?

Thanks for the help

Ali

 

[frodo]

FWIW, my package (version 3.62) reads 5.10.0.5650 at that screen. the
"package" includes several driver files, all w/ different version numbers.
The "3.62" is the package release version at the realtek site
(http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlac97-2.aspx?lineid=5&famid=12&series=8&Software=True

It sounds like your's is a bit old, and NOT one of the new ones w/ bugs
that I discussed.

I'd reccomend visiting the laptop maker's web site and downloading their
realtek driver for you machine, and reloading it. Best bet would be to
uninstall it and then reinstall (rather than install on top of existing
one).

Good Luck.