I have an ASUS laptop with integrated Realtek ALC880 HDA. For some strange reason, I wasn't able to install a driver newer than R2.29 (current is R2.47). To be more specific, the installation would go fine, but after restart I would lose the small speaker icon in the taskbar and there would be no sound, although Sound Manager would report everything was fine.

The solution lies in the RtkHDAud.sys driver. I don't know why, but it will not accept a version newer than 5.10.0.5874. So, today I downloaded the latest package (R2.47), replaced RtkHDAud.sys with the older version (before installing) and it works!

Thought I would share in case anyone is experiencing the same things.

Cheers

Don't you just love fixing these Chinese manufactures stupidity?

Almost as bad as trying to install that UAA pre-driver (as I call it) on a system with XP w/sp3 and get a message that the package is older that the SP even though sp3 doesn't have the UAA pre driver installed.

Edited May 20, 201016 yr by videobruce

Actually, it does. It's the hdaudbus.sys file which should be present in system32/drivers. When I install a clean XPSP3, it immediately recognizes the audio card and the modem and installs them. All I have to do is add the manufacturer drivers.