You have two choices: SoundBlaster Live! signed drivers which work swell but don’t have support for digital speakers and NGO HQ drivers which have a couple of bugs but support digital audio.Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Sound Blaster cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything: Vista 5308 may or may not find drivers on Windows Update, but even if it does, they will not support Digital Audio. This applies to all Live! products, including OEM Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. Vista will tell you that Windows Update has found newer drivers.I have this card and was quick to replace it… Time to get a new sound card if you are still having issues :(
Try going up or down until it works out….
Open Device Manager (Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager) find the entry for the SoundMAX, and update its driver with the one in the \SMAXWDM\W2K_XP\ directory that you just extracted.Download these drivers and extract them to a folder somewhere with WinZip.This is an improvement over 5270 where you had to find your own drivers, AND it was impossible to get digital audio. These drivers stutter, hiss, snap, crackle, and pop, nonstop and do not have support for digital audio. Microsoft Windows Vista build 5308 uses Windows Update (herein called WU) to get the latest drivers for the SoundMAX chipset. If you need more help, please use the forums. If you find this guide helpful, please donate to defray some of our bandwidth costs. NeoSmart Technologies is now hosting the more-popular drivers on our own server. The last two entries do not support Digital Audio, and are simply a manner of finding the right drivers compatible with your chipset making them at once the easiest to solve due to the lack of complications, and the hardest due to the large variety of AC ’97 implementations. Other AC ’97 – No compatible drivers Digital N/A.SigmaTel Integrated Audio – No compatible drivers Digital N/A.SigmaTel HD Audio – Default Vista drivers don’t well in digital, bad bass.
Creative Audigy 1 – No sound by default, Creative drivers won’t install.Creative Sound Blaster Live! Series – No sound by default, Creative drivers won’t install.SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio – Analog audio with the drivers works fine, but digital audio doesn’t.NeoSmart Technologies has compiled a list of audio drivers for the most popular sound cards that experience trouble with Windows Vista, in hopes that our readers will find it useful. The biggest problem with audio drivers for Windows Vista is with Digital Audio – most people can get their SPDIF or Digital outputs to spew analog sound – which just doesn’t work with hi-fi, digital speakers. While Windows Vista may tout a “all-new and improved” audio stack with superb quality and resonance, it’s of no use if you don’t have the right sound card drivers for Windows Vista.