Windows 7 and C-Media CMI 9880 driver installation
Before I started running the Windows 7 RTM setup and doing my data backups I remembered how challenging it was 3 years ago to install the audio drivers for the onboard sound card CMI 9880. I started to bing (same results for google and I use bing for every search) for Windows 7 audio drivers and no luck, I did bing it again for Windows Vista drivers and there was a few links pointing to some forums where people got insane with the CMI 9880 drivers installation on Windows Vista (at 3 years back from now I was one of them and I kept the same installation during all this time, heheheh). I also tried to get new drivers from the Asus website and there was no new drivers and they also pointed the responsibility to C-Media, even thou I started looking at the C-Media website but even 3 years later there is no Windows Vista drivers, so it was a bit obvious that Windows 7 was no exception. Like thousands of other guys that bought motherboards with the C-Media 9880 integrated (Asus was not the only hardware vendor to integrate this audio chipset), I am extremely disappointed with C-Media, I can guarantee you that I will not spend any single cent in another motherboard or sound card that has any C-Media chipset integrated.
To help you with the audio driver installation of the C-Media CMI 9880 on Windows 7, I present you the following plan:
- Unplug all the jacks of your audio system from the Onboard Sound Card back panel (the smart jack function will mess with the driver installation);
- Download the CMI 9880 driver version 09.59.73 flexbass from the link below:
UDAX009-AZA10-Logo09.59.73-flexbass.zip – http://cid-0fa4fd9b4dcab3bc.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/P%c3%bablica/UDAX009-AZA10-Logo09.59.73-flexbass.zip
- Unzip the file and browse into the the folder where you can see the “setup.exe” file, right-click on it and select “Properties”, click on the “Compatibility” tab, mark the checkbox “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and select “Windows XP SP2”;
- You need to run the setup process has an Administrator so that the setup process can complete successfully the registry changes related to the Xear 3D system tray icon (Audio control panel to manage the audio configuration). I have tried to run it before without elevating the admin privileges and the icon did not showed up at the System tray. To avoid that issue right-click on the setup.exe file and chose the option “Run as Administrator”.
- Reboot the machine;
- Open the Xear 3D icon from the System tray (don’t forget that by default Windows 7 will hide several system tray icons, you need to expand the system tray to see the Xear 3D icon) or from the Control Panel (read the “Note 2” if you can’t find it there);
- Plug in all the jacks from your audio system and set the right configuration (it does support 2.1, 4.1, 5.1 and 7.1 sound systems);
Note 1: Even after running the setup.exe with elevated privileges if for some reason the Xear 3D (C-Media 3D Audio Configuration) system tray icon is not showing, you can do the following changes to enable it:
The Xear 3D is a control panel application that came integrated on the Audio driver, it can be found at “C:\Windows\system\cmicnfg.cpl”, basically what you need to do is to run a shell command (RunDll32 cmicnfg.cpl,CMICtrlWnd) for the cmicnfg.cpl during the system startup. It can be done by doing the following registry changes:
Under the reg key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run” create a string value with the following specification:
Name: Cmaudio
Type: REG_SZ
Data: RunDll32 cmicnfg.cpl,CMICtrlWnd
Restart the computer and the Xear 3D icon will be available on the system tray (don’t forget that by default Windows 7 will hide several system tray icons, you need to expand the system tray to see the Xear 3D icon).
Note 2: Like on Vista the Xear 3D icon that will give you access to the C-Media 3D Audio Configuration should be available on the Windows Control Panel as well, the thing is that the default view of the Windows 7 Control Panel is shown by categories and for some reason the Xear 3D icon is not shown there, to be able to see the icon you just need to sort the view by “large icons” or “small icons” or for instance if you are a kind of geek you can run shell commands to open the Windows Control Panel by running shell:ControlPanelFolder which will show you the Control Panel with the Large icons view. 🙂
Note 3: The plan didn’t work for you? RTFM, follow it carefully and you will not have any issue during this installation.
R-Tape Loading error,
Luis Rato
WhenI try to install it, it says “Driver installation failed. Please check High Definition Audio Device and Reboot System” and even after somany tys and alot of reboots it still wont work… any tips?
Alex said this on 30 de Novembro de 1999 às 0:00 |
nice! it worked fine
cesar said this on 31 de Outubro de 2009 às 19:10 |
dosnt work for me. when i install the driver, its sys installiaton faild:S what shall i do?
eric said this on 9 de Novembro de 2009 às 0:02 |
sorta worked for me. I do have sound now but the Xear 3d audio configuration / testing does not work. Spent a lot a time trying to get this to work then gave up and shutdown only to hear the sound come on.Your instructions were the best I have found so far and I searched for hours so thanks loads.My hardware was an ASUS P5AD2E-Premium.
Robert said this on 15 de Novembro de 2009 às 20:49 |
Thanks, muy buen post
Alejandro said this on 12 de Dezembro de 2009 às 11:15 |
Works like a charm on ALDI Medion Titanium MD 8383XL. Thx a lot !!! (first i only got sound in the headphones, now only in the speakers, but I \’ve sound on Windows 7!)
Unknown said this on 31 de Janeiro de 2010 às 9:59 |
Thankyou so much after reading so many blogs/solutions and downloading so many drivers that didnt work.Yours worked like a treat. Ive been searching for a solution since windows 7 first came out and now i have sound from my pc….hoorah!! 🙂
max said this on 21 de Fevereiro de 2010 às 15:34 |
thanks buddy.<a href="http://www.edhardyladen.com">ed hardy</a>
edhardy said this on 25 de Abril de 2010 às 3:52 |
Luis – thank you very much!
Conrad said this on 26 de Maio de 2010 às 19:33 |
Thank you! Fixed my problem!!
Robert Rael said this on 18 de Março de 2011 às 3:19 |
Thank-you so much. Followed the instructions and it worked first time. Much appreciated.
Laurence said this on 14 de Julho de 2011 às 1:18 |
thanks much!
kazze said this on 26 de Agosto de 2011 às 10:28 |
Thanks a lot for your web help. I was at a loss to solve that problem on onboard sound card. Your suggesting was been very clear and simply. Good job.
GC
GianCarlo Vassena said this on 15 de Setembro de 2011 às 8:45 |
Luis, this was the perfect solution!
Running Windows 7 Home Premium on a motherboard using the CMI 9880 chipset. I did exactly as you said. Was perfect. Thank you!
obrigado!
DrLoveToe said this on 1 de Dezembro de 2011 às 9:34 |
thanks very much!
Alexander said this on 7 de Dezembro de 2011 às 21:14 |
Excellent. Thank you. UK January 2011
Alan Wheate said this on 30 de Janeiro de 2012 às 13:21 |
It works perfectly, thank you.
Steve H UK
Steve Heather said this on 16 de Maio de 2012 às 14:23 |
Thank you so much, I was getting frustrated! Works like a charm!
Lilith Dominates said this on 21 de Maio de 2012 às 9:46 |
thanks man
mmmmm said this on 5 de Junho de 2012 às 19:29 |
[…] Windows 7 and C-Media CMI 9880 driver installation « Luís Rato’s …Aug 18, 2009 … Alex disse isto em 30 de Novembro de 1999 às 0:00 | Responder. nice! it worked fine. cesar disse isto em 31 de Outubro de 2009 às 19:10 | … […]
Alexander disse | Superstartrave said this on 27 de Junho de 2012 às 0:59 |
I have been searching for a solution since last 3 days. Your solution worked like a charm. I have P5GD2 Deluxe motherboard and the audio is restored. A Big Thank you !
Vinay Barigidad said this on 10 de Outubro de 2012 às 18:44 |
all the last night, i was stand up with this problemm…. many many thanks – bernie
cigal40 said this on 24 de Outubro de 2012 às 19:13 |
This works perfectly for Medion 8383 XL computer, thanks a million from the Netherlands !
Gerard said this on 24 de Novembro de 2012 às 16:17 |
thanX a lot Guy!!!!!! U R the best, i´m back on the sounds life 🙂 long and best life 4 U
José Luis González Delank said this on 16 de Dezembro de 2012 às 20:26 |
you are the bomb buddy. drive installation worked on a Medion M3 Composer 5200 AC97 C-Media CMI9880 audio with Windows 7 Ultimate with the following ID:
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_434D&DEV_4980&SUBSYS_70461462&REV_0904
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_434D&DEV_4980&SUBSYS_70461462
jose madre said this on 15 de Fevereiro de 2013 às 17:36 |
hvala puno thanky thanky I finaly have sound on lg lw70 win7 thanky
mahalasr said this on 24 de Fevereiro de 2013 às 16:01 |
ECS 915P-A onboard soundcard C-Media 9880
V3 Black VL 8000 Thermaltake case
8 gig Kingston memory
Socket T 3.4
Nvidia GE 8400
Eagle 650w PSU
Seagate Barracuda 500 SATA 7200 16 MB CACHE
Sabrent PCI TV Tuner Capture Card
Blueray DVD/CD Writer
Win7 32 bit
Works like a champ…just followed the directions. This system on the low end 45 % but it works good.Thanks
mg said this on 18 de Março de 2013 às 0:56 |
Tu es un as !!! Extra un grand merci à toi et à ton blog. Bravo pour le fichier partagé.
Olivier Defawe said this on 20 de Março de 2013 às 8:06 |
Thak you!!!!
Celso said this on 8 de Maio de 2013 às 4:19 |
OK, ThanX for the installation-tip(s). So basically you can just use the XP 32-bit OR 64-bit drivers from the regular ASUS Site. Nobody mentioned the difference, but with the 32-bit drivers you should delete the folder ‘BusDriver’ to skip the ‘KBxxxxxx’ update for XP (which is UAA, if I remember well). My system also complained with ‘Failed’, but Device Manager showed already a proper install BEFORE rebooting! But during reboot the system kept hanging, until a hard shutdown. Afterwards I plugged in and heared sound, but it took an age before the red cross disappeared from the sound-symbol in system tray. Greetings from an old P5GDC-V DeLuxe, still running XP (till 2014), but finally testing Win7.
Micheon said this on 14 de Maio de 2013 às 12:10 |
It works.
Win 7 & Asus P5GDC Deluxe with CMI9880
Jerzy said this on 29 de Junho de 2013 às 15:42 |
Very useful guide, thank you very much.
mrico said this on 3 de Setembro de 2013 às 13:00 |
does not work on Windows 7 x64. help please
ion said this on 23 de Setembro de 2013 às 11:10 |
Hi, the described installation process was done on a x86 Operating System due to the lack of x64 extensions on my Intel Prescott CPU.
Anyway, please provide me the details so that I can evaluate if it is possible to find a solution.
Need to know:
– Motherboard model;
– CPU model;
– Audio Driver that you are using and from where you downloaded;
– Installation tasks that you have done and what is the abdnormal behavior that you are experiencing;
Let me emphasize that ASUS does not Support Win7/8 on the Described motherboard, I cannot promise that I’ll solve your issue but at least I can try. 😉
Regards,
Luís
Luis Rato said this on 26 de Setembro de 2013 às 10:46 |
It’s True.
Thank you.
António Cruz said this on 26 de Setembro de 2013 às 10:17 |
Hello,
I am fighting with this exact same problem, and the solution you provided did not work for me. On my machine, with Win7, the problem is that I have the sound out of speakers, but the MIC entry does not work. If I boot back to XP, everything works fine.
Machine : Unica, MB MS-7187, with Xear-3D interface for sound, chipset CMI 9880L.
I have downloaded the driver, set it up to compatibility & administator, & launched it. Install starts, but at the step ‘installing bus driver’ the install stops and a message appears : ‘Driver installation failed. Please check High Definition Audio device and reboot system’
Tried it 3 times, without success. It is like it says the device is not there, but as said, if I boot on my alternate partition which is in XP, everything is working fine.
Any idea ?
Thanks for you help, if you can provide some. :O)
Guy.
Guy Angelozzi said this on 20 de Outubro de 2013 às 22:15 |
… I forgot to tell that the CPU is intel 820D, OS is Win7 32bits. and driver that Win7 assigned by default, and that is not working, is ‘High Definition Audio’ version 6.1.7600.16385.
Thanks !
Guy Angelozzi said this on 20 de Outubro de 2013 às 22:22 |
Hi there Guy,
I notice that you are testing the process with a different Motherboard, from the feedback I had this process worked for other Motherboards with the same CMI chipset, so I can’t guarantee that it will work with your specific motherboard.
Anyway, let’s try to fix that.
First, keep in mind that the Default High Definition Audio will not work.
I believe that the failure you described is caused by a Hardware Conflict (IRQ, DMA channel, etc) with the High Definition driver already installed.
Before you run the setup with the described process, try to remove the High Definition Audio driver, for that on the Device Manager right click on that Hight Definition Audio Driver and select “Uninstall”, after this run the setup process again as described on the blog post and try to see if it works.
Cheers,
Luís
Luis Rato said this on 24 de Outubro de 2013 às 14:07 |
Hello Luis,
I just tried your last proposal.
I Uninstalled the driver, answered NO to the ‘reboot’ proposal,
And rolled out the procedure again, basically removing cables
and launching the Setup, (compat XP SP2) as the driver files
were already on my computer.
The installation fails at same step with same error message.
If after default driver removal, I answer yes to the ‘reboot’ proposal,
the system restarts, and unfortunately re-installs the default driver immediately, so I am back again with the default driver. :O/
Another idea ?
Many thanks !
N.B.: I suppose that in installing an additional PCI sound card,
I can workaround the problem, but I would prefer to make the
motherboard work, if it is possible. Thanks again.
Guy Angelozzi said this on 25 de Outubro de 2013 às 11:20 |
I think I know the reason.
Your motherboard has a ‘CMI9880L’ chipset and the driver I’ve provided it’s for ‘CMI9880′, you should not install this driver on your system.
I don’t have such HW for testing and based on my investigation I pretty much doubt that you will have success to find Win7/8 driver that is compatible with ‘CMI9880L’.
My recommendation for your case is to disable the Internal Sound Card CMI9880L through the BIOS Settings and buy a cheap USB Sound Card, such as:
Good quality:
Cheap as possible for your legacy Motherboard:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-6-Channel-5-1-Audio-External-Optical-Sound-Card-Adapter-For-PC-Laptop-Skype-/200905566569?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_SoundCards&hash=item2ec6e7a969
Regards,
Luís
Luis Rato said this on 25 de Outubro de 2013 às 14:41 |
Thanks Luis.
I think this is the best solution, provided that I have spent a lot of time yet to try to resolve this, not to mention the help you also kindly provided.
Thanks a lot !
Guy Angelozzi said this on 25 de Outubro de 2013 às 16:49 |
But the driver or knows any solution for Windows 8? I tried the same thing but does not open the icon in Contol Panel. Thanks
Lucian said this on 4 de Dezembro de 2013 às 17:55 |
Hi Lucian,
for Windows 8 follow this link:
Same driver but different process.
Regards,
Luís
Luis Rato said this on 12 de Dezembro de 2013 às 17:00 |
Or no 9880 driver for Windows 8? or a solution?
Lucian said this on 4 de Dezembro de 2013 às 17:57 |
I am French and I make the effort of translation just to say Thank you.
Gérard said this on 8 de Dezembro de 2013 às 13:56 |
Thank you for your kind reply. 🙂
Luis Rato said this on 12 de Dezembro de 2013 às 16:54 |
Show Show Show. You are the men.
Long life and peace for you.
Thanks thanks very much
Roger from Brazil
Roger said this on 17 de Dezembro de 2013 às 13:40 |
sweet. i had used a 62.64 driver for xp/2000. btw your solution is unique and others sits only make me lost time.
Cheers mate.
cristian said this on 1 de Janeiro de 2014 às 7:24 |
Thanks very much. Just installed on MS-7091 ver2 motherboard (Windows 7 home premiun). No problems, Device manager happy and line out ok. Rest to test but less important for this project.
Alan said this on 9 de Janeiro de 2014 às 12:51 |