Audo Driver issue on Sony Vaio VGNFW11e after downgrade to XP

Do you have this directory?  C:\Program Files\Sony\vaio recovery

If so then run Launcher.exe and then do the reinstall drivers.

You should be able to download these utilities from the Sony website, but I cannot find your model number. Is this REALLY REALLY new?

It should have come with a CD/DVD with the same ability.  Just do a search for drivers or that Launcher program.

HTH

If you do not have the drivers backup you can get it from here.  

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/downloads/updates/updates.asp?site=voe_EN_GB_cons&c=0&s=VGN-FW&m=3337

Sorry.. Above link is to get updates

Exact link is

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/downloads/preinstalled/preinstalled.asp?site=voe_EN_GB_cons&m=3337

Try installing the Audio driver

Before installing this Realtek Audio Driver  uninstall previous driver packages that you have tried so for.

Sounds like we need to unistall the drivers and reinstall tghe correct ones:

Maybe we can walk through and find the drivers from the manufacturers...
1. Right Click on My Computer, Left click on Manage.
2. Click on Device Manager, you should notice on the right hand side icons with a yellow symbol next to them, this shows the device is unknown, or drivers are not installed.
3. Right click a device you are looking for, left click on properties.
4. Click on the Details tab on the top of the menu that popped up.
5. You should see some code in the middle that looks similar to this:
             "PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_169C&SUBSYS_308&"
The important peices are:
    VEN_14E4    is    Vendor 14E4
    DEV_169C    is    Device 169C    for     Vendor    14E4

You can take this information to the website http://www.pcidatabase.com and find the specific device information for the drivers, then go to the manufacturer website and see if they make drivers for Windows XP, some hardware is Vista specific and the manufacturer's do not have driver support for Windows XP.

*Once you are in the Vendor and are searching for the Device you can hold CTRL and press 'F'.
-This is the Find feature, type in the Device ID and it will find it much quicker, since some pages are quite long.

Hope this helps!

Hi all,

Thanks for your suggestions, sorry im slow getting back...the 9-5 can sometimes be a darn inconvenience :-)...

 MightySW,  C:\Program Files\Sony\vaio recovery, unfortunately i dont have the laptop in front of me at present but im pretty sure I dont have any folder with that path, I will check though.

gsnshankar, thanks for your comments. im going to try uninstalling the drivers currently installed and try the ones listed on the site....seem to be specified as Vista only bust what the heck..il give it a go

Brian, yep I tried that last night and unfortunately many of the device ID's that showed didnt return any known hardware which was a bummer :-(

I'm going to try Uni/ reinstalling the drivers and see what happens, if anybody has anymore ideas though feel free to throw them in, anybody have any clue why it shows two PCI devices as unknown in Device Manager?

Thanks,

Paddy

It may just be that this very new model VIAO doesn't have XP drivers.  I have seen that before with some of the new Toshiba's.  I think that it is stupid, but you never know.  

Still no luck on this, real nightmare. I've tried every Realtek driver under the sun. No joy. I did notice on the Sony site they specify two Realtek Audio drivers (both vista unfortunately), one HD driver and a second driver, can anybody explain why there are two drivers?

I suppose their is the possibility that the sound card is just not supported for XP, does anybody know of a definitive way I check exactly what hardware I have?

Lastly, anybody think I could gain anything from reformatting and starting from scratch, not so sure wince I still haven't any clue which driver I actually need, would the order of install make a serious difference?

Any help on this appreciated....gona sleep on it :-(

My post above will tell you exactly what you have, then if you go to the manufacturer you will see if there are drivers that exist for your hardware.

Yes.again I searched for your problem but nil.

Why dont you call Sony Customer care and enquire about the compatibility of your model with XP.

 Probably Your sound card is not supported for XP. Also Think about restoring Vista ?

Hi Brian, unfortunately the only devices that are showing with the yellow warning sign next to it are two unknown PCI devices, is one of these the sound card?

Im going to try calling Sony Customer Care also, not too hopeful though

The two in yellow may be linked to audio, or be something like a card reader. If the audio is what you are looking for you may only have one option in finding generic drivers. (I do not know much about generic drivers)
Some manufacturers are not making XP drivers for somem moedels. I have run in to 2 or 3 machines I could not find th drivers for.
Sorry I couldn't help more!

Hi,

I cracked it. I was missing the Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio. This is required to identify the hardware and must be installed before attempting to install the actual software driver or it wont work.

It stemmed from using a OEM WIn XP disk slipstreamed with SP3 and was related to why an unknown PCI device was showing. It must not of included the update (kb88111) and since I had SP3, when I ran live update or tried to fire the msi it would take the update since I had SP3 and this update wont apply to SP3, it needs to be installed before SP3 or manually applied, which is what I did.

Details on UAA Bus Driver
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888111/en-us

So first download the update and then KB888111 can be installed on top of SP3. Follow the instructions below.
 
1) Use 7-zip or WinRAR to extract
2) Extract KB888111XPSP2.exe to a folder such as C:\KB888111XPSP2
3) Open Device Manager, search for the Unknown PCI device
4) Right click on the Unknown PCI device to update the driver
5) Point the driver path to this C:\KB888111XPSP2\commonfiles\

You should now see Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio under system devices in Device Manger and you should now be able to install your actual sound card drivers fine :-)

Thanks for all your suggestions

Great to read that you cracked the  problem. This is a knowledgebase solution for most. Regards.