Weird behavior of Audio Service and Audio Endpoint Builder

Ok, got tired of that crap and performed a complete reinstallation of the system.
Just installed ATI drivers and sound drivers.
Audio started to malfunction after three reboots.

[Edit] I think I've found another culprit: latest ATI beta drivers.

Okay, I think I nailed it. If you are an owner of AMD GPUs, this is highly important. It cost me a new mobo as the one I had was also failing at the time. I experienced the *same exact* problems with a different Gigabyte mobo which had a different sound chip (VIA).

If you install the latest Windows 7 updates and have installed 13.4 or 13.5 beta drivers, there is a high chance that the whole system will go completely wrong. The most noticeable effects are the audio service which will go mad and the delays which will occur when you shut down Windows.

I don't know who the culprit is: AMD for providing broken drivers which can't handle new updates, or Microsoft for providing updates which break the integrity of the system. I rolled back to the 13.2 beta 7 AMD drivers which appear to make the whole system more responsive than the newest drivers. If you experience delays while shutting down, something will clearly go wrong at the next reboot.

(edit) : despite having rolled back to 13.2 beta drivers, the audio still malfunctions. It seems that the culprit is Microsoft and its marvellous updates.

In order to be sure of what kind of crap makes these annoyances occuring, it would be kind from other people to tell:

* what are the last updates they installed before experiencing problems by monitoring the history in appwiz.cpl,
* what the brand of their mobo is,
* what the brand of their GPU(s) is (are),
* what drivers they installed with their GPU(s).

We are clearly in a case where the updates have not been thoroughly tested.
If you are a gamer like me, stick to the latest 13.2 drivers.