Solution for UAA and HD AUDIO Problems

To begin with, Intel has two types of integrated audio architectures; Ac’ 97 and the HD Audio. Ac’ 97 is history and HD AUDIO is the in thing and there lies the problem. Microsoft had released a Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) patch which most people are unaware of. laptops, OEM, barebone users find it difficult to obtain drivers for their sound cards due to this.

Here is the perfect solution for people with HD Audio and UAA Problems.

* The Best thing to do is download drivers from manufacturer’s website if they are available. Google like this 'Brand' 'Model' 'Drivers'(eg. Conexant CX20549 Drivers), you will hopefully find it somewhere on the internet. Some come with UAA auto installation procedure and some require manual installation. If you still have problems or have to do it manually, follow these steps to solve it.

* ID your hardware. I use PC Wizard. Identify your chipset and check whether it has HD AUDIO using the internet.

* If it is HD Compliant, then proceed to download UAA Drivers from this HP web page. It’s not available directly from Microsoft as majority driver packages include them.

* Unzip the contents, locate the MS UAA folder and install the patches. The patch is named as KB888111. Begin installation and wait till you will see some ‘found hardware’ balloon tips. If your device didn't show up all this time, it will now.

* Now run PC Wizard, find your hardware audio controller, and find the actual drivers. This should make your sound card work perfect. Install correct driver to ensure maximum benefit.
Who needs this solution? This solution applies for any audio hardware (Realtek, Via, Conexant….) on the Intel High Definition Audio Bus in most of the 9xx and x3x chipsets.

Why are we doing this? In these boards, the drivers access the audio hardware through the HD Audio Bus which requires the UAA bus drivers in order to access the hardware.


Why many don’t face this problem? They probably got a fully automated driver installation package like UAA+Driver and you probably have to do UAA first manually and driver next. Windows XP SP3 doesn’t have this UAA integrated on to it, it still is a Hotfix.

Hope this helps!!!