Can't see Stereo Mix on Dell Inspiron 7520

Hello

And thank you for the quick reply. Yep I downloaded the latest Connexant driver today from Dell. I re-installed it again just now and I ran Speccy again and now it says:

Audio
Sound Cards - Conexant SmartAudio HD, Intel Display Audio
Playback Device - Speakers (Conexant SmartAudio HD)
Recording Device- Internal Microphone (Conexant SmartAudio HD)

However, still no Stereo Mix even when I right click in "Sound" and have Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices enabled.

There is a series of posts on a Toshiba Forum titled "How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION" where they talk about editing the driver .inf file and then re-installing the driver using that file and that has worked for several people so it seemed to be a software limitation, for them at least, and not necessarily hardware.

I'll post on the Dell Forum. Any other advice much appreciated :)

Cheers.

I got it working!

The solution involved making changes to the .inf driver file and re-installing that file. Here I explain what I did in case someone else has this same problem.

My Problem:
New Dell Inspiron 7520, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with latest Conexant driver from Dell Drivers website. Stereo Mix would not show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab even after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices.

Solution:
Ensure you have the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver installed. You should see it under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager. With the Conexant driver already installed and working the key is finding the exact location of the driver file. It might vary from one computer to another and also be called something else. Mine was called chdrt.inf and it was located in: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

If you are not sure where your .inf file is located you could do a windows search for text in files of the string: EpSettings\StereoMixEnable. It will most likely be a file with the extension .inf and be located in a sub folder of the System32 folder.

Right click on the .inf filename and select "Open With" then choose Notepad. Hit Control+F then search for StereoMix to find the three lines:
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,Enable,1,01
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MixAssocSeq,1,E0,E0
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MuteGainSettings,1,00,00

Delete the semi-colons -->; and save the file. However Windows won't let you save the .inf file unless you change the files permissions. This gets complicated and a bit dangerous!

Basically right click on the .inf and then click these tabs/buttons.. Properties> Security>Advanced>Owner. The current owner should be TrustedInstaller. Change this to an account on your computer that has Administrator rights and you can log in as. So Click on Edit and in the "Change Owner To:" field there should be an entry there such as: Administrators (Your computer name\Administrators) so choose that then Ok and apply and Ok to close out all the dialog boxes.

Now right click on the .inf file again: Properties>Security>Edit>Select "Everyone" in "Group or User Names">Select checkbox for "Write" in the "Permissions for Everyone" section>Hit Apply and OK your way to close all the dialog boxes. Now you can save the .inf file you deleted the semi-colons from!

This step is VERY important. You must change back the permissions to the way they were. Right click on the .inf and as before change the Write permission by deselecting the checkbox for "Write" and also then change the Ownership of the .inf file back to TrustedInstaller. This time you go Owner>Edit>Other Users or Groups and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller in the box and hit Check Names then Ok and Apply your way out of the dialog boxes.

Now finally re-install the driver: Here I got problems with the driver not being recognised and possibly it was because Windows 7 64 bit was saying it is not digitally signed so here's what I did: Start Menu>Right click Command Prompt>Run as administrator>type in this command and hit enter... bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON.
To install the driver: Device Manager>Sound, Video and Game Controllers>Right click on Conexant SmartAudio HD>Update Driver Software>Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list..>Have Disk>Browse>Now in here you need to find the location of the .inf file you just edited, in my case I pasted in the path to the folder and hit enter then selected the chrdt.inf file and hit OK. When it was installed I went back to the command line as before and ran the command: bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF

Now I rebooted the computer and this time Stereo Mix DID show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices. I wonder why the Conexant driver has those three lines commented out thus disabling Stereo Mix?

Sorry for the long post but if I had found an idiots guide like this yesterday it would have saved me about 8 or 9 hours of googling and frustration!

Sources of info:
"How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION"
http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Audio-Sound/How-get-Stereo-Mix-on-Conexant-sound-card-SOLUTION/td-p/174656
"How to Configure System32"
http://www.ehow.com/how_7625078_configure-system32.html
"How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista and Windows 7"
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/159360-trustedinstaller-restore-owner.html
"Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers"
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/3914-windows-7-disable-signature-verification-of-drivers

SeanieOS said:

I got it working!

The solution involved making changes to the .inf driver file and re-installing that file. Here I explain what I did in case someone else has this same problem.

My Problem:
New Dell Inspiron 7520, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with latest Conexant driver from Dell Drivers website. Stereo Mix would not show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab even after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices.

Solution:
Ensure you have the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver installed. You should see it under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager. With the Conexant driver already installed and working the key is finding the exact location of the driver file. It might vary from one computer to another and also be called something else. Mine was called chdrt.inf and it was located in: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

If you are not sure where your .inf file is located you could do a windows search for text in files of the string: EpSettings\StereoMixEnable. It will most likely be a file with the extension .inf and be located in a sub folder of the System32 folder.

Right click on the .inf filename and select "Open With" then choose Notepad. Hit Control+F then search for StereoMix to find the three lines:
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,Enable,1,01
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MixAssocSeq,1,E0,E0
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MuteGainSettings,1,00,00

Delete the semi-colons -->; and save the file. However Windows won't let you save the .inf file unless you change the files permissions. This gets complicated and a bit dangerous!

Basically right click on the .inf and then click these tabs/buttons.. Properties> Security>Advanced>Owner. The current owner should be TrustedInstaller. Change this to an account on your computer that has Administrator rights and you can log in as. So Click on Edit and in the "Change Owner To:" field there should be an entry there such as: Administrators (Your computer name\Administrators) so choose that then Ok and apply and Ok to close out all the dialog boxes.

Now right click on the .inf file again: Properties>Security>Edit>Select "Everyone" in "Group or User Names">Select checkbox for "Write" in the "Permissions for Everyone" section>Hit Apply and OK your way to close all the dialog boxes. Now you can save the .inf file you deleted the semi-colons from!

This step is VERY important. You must change back the permissions to the way they were. Right click on the .inf and as before change the Write permission by deselecting the checkbox for "Write" and also then change the Ownership of the .inf file back to TrustedInstaller. This time you go Owner>Edit>Other Users or Groups and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller in the box and hit Check Names then Ok and Apply your way out of the dialog boxes.

Now finally re-install the driver: Here I got problems with the driver not being recognised and possibly it was because Windows 7 64 bit was saying it is not digitally signed so here's what I did: Start Menu>Right click Command Prompt>Run as administrator>type in this command and hit enter... bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON.
To install the driver: Device Manager>Sound, Video and Game Controllers>Right click on Conexant SmartAudio HD>Update Driver Software>Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list..>Have Disk>Browse>Now in here you need to find the location of the .inf file you just edited, in my case I pasted in the path to the folder and hit enter then selected the chrdt.inf file and hit OK. When it was installed I went back to the command line as before and ran the command: bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF

Now I rebooted the computer and this time Stereo Mix DID show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices. I wonder why the Conexant driver has those three lines commented out thus disabling Stereo Mix?

Sorry for the long post but if I had found an idiots guide like this yesterday it would have saved me about 8 or 9 hours of googling and frustration!

Sources of info:
"How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION"
How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION - TOSHIBA FORUMS
"How to Configure System32"
How to Configure System32 | eHow.com
"How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista and Windows 7"
TrustedInstaller - Restore as Owner
"Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers"
Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers

Thanks a ton for the detailed instructions! After having spent hours trying to figure out how to fix it, this worked flawlessly! The internet needs more of people like you.

Run for presidency and I'll vote for you :P

Hey SeanieOS,

thanks a lot for your detailed description. made me overcome my frustration that I am having with the same kind of problem.
but i need your or some other persons advice: I am using a different DELL notebook (inspiron 3520) with another soundcard (cirrus logic). do you know how i can find out what to delete or to edit in the script of the driver?

would be great!
thanks,

dangeon

reza90 said:

SeanieOS said:

I got it working!

The solution involved making changes to the .inf driver file and re-installing that file. Here I explain what I did in case someone else has this same problem.

My Problem:
New Dell Inspiron 7520, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with latest Conexant driver from Dell Drivers website. Stereo Mix would not show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab even after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices.

Solution:
Ensure you have the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver installed. You should see it under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager. With the Conexant driver already installed and working the key is finding the exact location of the driver file. It might vary from one computer to another and also be called something else. Mine was called chdrt.inf and it was located in: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

If you are not sure where your .inf file is located you could do a windows search for text in files of the string: EpSettings\StereoMixEnable. It will most likely be a file with the extension .inf and be located in a sub folder of the System32 folder.

Right click on the .inf filename and select "Open With" then choose Notepad. Hit Control+F then search for StereoMix to find the three lines:
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,Enable,1,01
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MixAssocSeq,1,E0,E0
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MuteGainSettings,1,00,00

Delete the semi-colons -->; and save the file. However Windows won't let you save the .inf file unless you change the files permissions. This gets complicated and a bit dangerous!

Basically right click on the .inf and then click these tabs/buttons.. Properties> Security>Advanced>Owner. The current owner should be TrustedInstaller. Change this to an account on your computer that has Administrator rights and you can log in as. So Click on Edit and in the "Change Owner To:" field there should be an entry there such as: Administrators (Your computer name\Administrators) so choose that then Ok and apply and Ok to close out all the dialog boxes.

Now right click on the .inf file again: Properties>Security>Edit>Select "Everyone" in "Group or User Names">Select checkbox for "Write" in the "Permissions for Everyone" section>Hit Apply and OK your way to close all the dialog boxes. Now you can save the .inf file you deleted the semi-colons from!

This step is VERY important. You must change back the permissions to the way they were. Right click on the .inf and as before change the Write permission by deselecting the checkbox for "Write" and also then change the Ownership of the .inf file back to TrustedInstaller. This time you go Owner>Edit>Other Users or Groups and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller in the box and hit Check Names then Ok and Apply your way out of the dialog boxes.

Now finally re-install the driver: Here I got problems with the driver not being recognised and possibly it was because Windows 7 64 bit was saying it is not digitally signed so here's what I did: Start Menu>Right click Command Prompt>Run as administrator>type in this command and hit enter... bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON.
To install the driver: Device Manager>Sound, Video and Game Controllers>Right click on Conexant SmartAudio HD>Update Driver Software>Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list..>Have Disk>Browse>Now in here you need to find the location of the .inf file you just edited, in my case I pasted in the path to the folder and hit enter then selected the chrdt.inf file and hit OK. When it was installed I went back to the command line as before and ran the command: bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF

Now I rebooted the computer and this time Stereo Mix DID show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices. I wonder why the Conexant driver has those three lines commented out thus disabling Stereo Mix?

Sorry for the long post but if I had found an idiots guide like this yesterday it would have saved me about 8 or 9 hours of googling and frustration!

Sources of info:
"How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION"
How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION - TOSHIBA FORUMS
"How to Configure System32"
How to Configure System32 | eHow.com
"How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista and Windows 7"
TrustedInstaller - Restore as Owner
"Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers"
Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers

Thanks a ton for the detailed instructions! After having spent hours trying to figure out how to fix it, this worked flawlessly! The internet needs more of people like you.

Run for presidency and I'll vote for you :P

Thank you! Thank you so very much! I had this Problem in Windows 8 with my Acer 5830 TG and I couldnt use Spotify Recorder any more without a cable between audio output & input and therefore a signalworsening for the outcoming file. It worked fine in windows 7 with my card but then in windows 8 there were no Stereo Mix. Now I have it back, thanks to you! You're great!
So this is what i've done:
I installed the original connexant audio driver published by my laptops manufacturer (acer).
Then I entered the folder "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\acrpebwa.inf_amd64_8e775376fc3612b5" where i copied the acrpebwa.inf file to my desktop (if you go this way, you don't have to do all those things with the filerights!)
I opened the acrpebwa.inf file with editor and discovered, that there are several StereoMix lines, not only the three you recited.
I got to edit->replace and replaced the string ";HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMix"
with the string "HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMix" and then pressed the button "replace all".
Then I moved the acrpebwa.inf file from my desktop back to the folder "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\acrpebwa.inf_amd64_8e775376fc3612b5" (windows 8 asks if you want to do this as administrator - so yeah: no filerights changing!
Then I got to the device Manager and selected the .inf file as you already told et voilà it worked just fine!
Thank you so very much!

I'm glad you got your StereoMix working affenjunge. Thanks for the feedback about how to make the changes to the driver file without having to go through all those steps changing the file permissions.

Here is another way to avoid changing file permissions... download the latest Conexant driver. It will be a .exe file. Use a program called 7-Zip and you can open the .exe and look inside it. Find the driver file... it should be called chdrt.inf. With this file highlighted go to File menu and select 'Edit'. Now it will open in a text editor and you can edit out the semi-colons as mentioned before then save the file and close the archive. Now if you install this .exe file you will get the latest driver that will have StereoMix enabled.

I like leaning how to do things like this. If all I have to do is to modify the file lines I would like to cure this that way. I have this same problem on a MD2614u Gateway laptop. I enabled my file extensions and see no files with a .inf extension from either the Lenovo or Gateway latest driver download. The closest I see is a CHRDT64.sys file. When I open it with notepad plus it is endless and searching seems to not find the StereoMix lines. What do I need to do to find these lines?

The instructions I have given in this thread only apply to the Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with the Conexant driver. I don't have knowledge or experience with other soundcards on other computers. If you are not using the Conexant driver then for all I know those lines containing 'StereoMix' may not exist in the driver for your soundcard at all.

If the soundcard driver file for your laptop ends in .inf and assuming you have Windows 7 then you could use Windows search to search the contents of C:\Windows\System32 for files that contain 'StereoMix' and that end in '.inf'

You could also download the latest driver for your soundcard.. if it is a .exe file then you can open it with a program like 7-Zip and then again use Windows Search to search all the files in that .exe 'bundle' for any files that contain the string 'StereoMix'.

Good Luck.