Windows 7: Bluegears b-enspirer will not work, even w/W7 drivers

Hello,

As a last resort before uninstalling Windows 7 I thought I might pose a question here. I have been using a Bluegears b-Enspirer with XP for a couple of years. Recently I did a clean install of Windows 7 32-bit on a brand-new hard drive. The sound card simply does not work. No system sounds, no music, etc. I have already tried uninstalling the default drivers, removing the card, reinstalling in a different PCI slot, and installing the Windows 7 drivers available from the Bluegears website. No dice.

I like to think I am not a complete idiot but I can't figure a way around this. Yes, I've checked all the obvious stuff (levels, mute, old drivers, etc) as well as checking the card on another machine - it's fine. Not sure what else to try at this point.

It doesn't take a lot of searching to see that a ton of people are having sound card issues with Windows 7. Is there a fix other than "Go download the updated drivers"?

ginandtacos, welcome to the forums.

Think you will find most of the problem is that C-Media hasn't released an updated driver for the chip that is on your card (CMI8788); or at least they haven't released it to Bgears.. Bgears may have made the card, but the chip and drivers all come from C-Media. I had a look at the INF for the driver for both your card and the Auzentech X-Meridian (another card that uses the CMI8788), and the driver version (6.12.8.1772) and release date (05/27/2009) are identical.

I know of one card that uses the same CMI8788 chip and that is the Asus Xonar D2X. You ready for this, it does have an updated driver for Windows 7 (version 7.12.8.1775, released 09/23/2009). The only difference between the driver from Asus (or Auzentech or Bgears, or even the C-Media reference driver) is what gets installed in the way of a control panel. Unless things have changed since I last used anything C-Media based, they all have the same control panel (Xear, etc), it is just the name that gets changed.

Now with that said there shouldn't be any reason that the Asus driver won't install on your Bgears card, will just take a little INF modding. If you're game to try go here and get the latest 7 driver for the D2X (have to work your way through the dropdown boxes),

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-

After downloading extract it to place easy to find. Then open the extracted folder and locate the following folder,

PCI-D2X-090923-V81775-Vista_W73264-RC-01\PCI-D2X-090923-8.17.75(Vista_W73264-RC-01)\Vista_W7\SoftwareDriver\Driver

then locate and open in Notepad XonarD2X.INF. Then add the following under [ASUSTek],

%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_878813F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_000113F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_001013F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021610B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021810B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021910B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_A017147A

and under [ASUSTek.NTamd64]

%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_878813F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_000113F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_001013F6
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021610B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021810B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_021910B0
%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCIX64, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_A017147A

then save the changes. I would then try manually installing just the driver through Device Manager,

Device Manager - Install Driver - Vista Forums

and worry about getting the software side of things after.

Thank you kindly for the advice - this seems like a fairly complicated fix and I'm amazed that there is not a simpler way to do this. WTF, Microsoft.

Making the changes in the driver was simple enough but I cannot manually install. But I will keep messing around with it until I can make it happen, hopefully.

Nothing to do with Microsoft, and everything to do with the hardware manufacturer not providing appropriate drivers.

Right, I guess it's my fault for upgrading and dropping $100 on a new sound card seems like an appropriate penalty.

You can feel that way if you want but it doesn't change the fact that it isn't Microsoft's responsibility to make the OS work with the hardware, it is up to the hardware manufacturer's to make sure their hardware works with the OS.

You want working drivers for your card, you need to get on Bgears case about getting a working driver out.

I understand, but this forum has 55 pages of people describing sound card problems after upgrading. It seems to me that someone at MS would say "Gee, most sound cards aren't going to work after upgrading - I wonder if our customers are going to be upset about that?" before release.

Pointing fingers at other manufacturers (or worse, calling the customers stupid for not being able to make it work, as they did with vista) seems like a poor excuse from a company with 80%+ of the OS market.

Hey ginandtacos,
Sorry to hear that yours did not work - I know how frustrating that must be. I also have the b-enspirer and went to the bgears website, dloaded the Windows 7 drivers, and my sound is back. I read a thread elsewhere where the author had success using the Vista32/64 bit drivers (i think in 32 bit mode though) - did you try that one? Finally, I would make sure your mobo is updated with its latest drivers - had a really frustrating issue where a game wouldn't work w/ a new vid card but it turned out to be the mobo drivers needing an update and not the card. Not sure if Windows 7 would cause the two to be incompatible after having worked together under XP but worth a try.

I can't believe this is so simple for everyone else and I have been devoting an hour per evening to it for 6 weeks now. The only thing I've managed to accomplish is that now in addition to the Bluegears card being useless, I can't get onboard sound off the mobo either (RealTek HD).

Oh well. Stop me if you've heard this before, but looks like I'm going back to XP. Too bad Macs cost so damn much.