Weird behavior of Audio Service and Audio Endpoint Builder

[YoshiNoir]

Hi,

Since this week, I'm experiencing strange behaviors of my sound installation.

At times, the Windows Audio Service does not start. The "Audio Endpoint Builder" and the "Multimedia Class Scheduler" do have started. I tried some fixes, like changing the NDIS value (which led me to completely reinstall the system on Monday 6th), looking for registry keys that don't exist so I don't have to delete them, etc.

The strangest part is this: if I uninstall and reinstall the drivers, at the next reboot, although I do have sound, my profile gets corrupted and I get the "systemprofile\desktop not available" message, with the mandatory black desktop that follows: http://www.xiirus.net/mediaobjects/content_mbp3t/mediaobject_am8ul.png

Then, after rebooting a second time, my desktop profile comes back… but the audio service won't start anymore again!
This happened with two sound cards: the integrated sound chip of my motherboard, and the Creativy Audigy SE I bought to replace it, thinking Creative's drivers were better. For both hardwares, the drivers used were the latest I could find on their respective websites.

Moreover, I have deleted all Creative drivers via Driver Sweeper… but the drivers for the sound card are still there after a reboot and the sound works again. But if I install Creative's drivers, I get back to that retarded "systemprofile\desktop not available" message.

I don't understand why Windows behaves like this. And yes, my Windows is a genuine copy.

 

[fireberd]

If both the Integrated audio and the Soundblaster are both enabled, there can be conflicts and sound problems.

If you want to use the SoundBlaster, disable the Integrated audio in the BIOS.

 

[YoshiNoir]

I've been careful to disable the integrated sound chip before I installed the Creative Audigy sound card and the integrated sound chip is actually completely disabled for now.

 

[fireberd]

I would suspect a Windows corruption of some type is causing the problems, some left over files or registry entries from the two sound devices.

Have you ran sfc /scannow to check the Windows files?

How to run sfc /scannow

 

[YoshiNoir]

OK, I just did it.

"Windows did not found any integrity violation".

:/

 

[lokiracer]

I'm having the same issue, but I don't have a Soundblaster card. I'm also running Windows 7 Pro x64.

It happened to be after I ran Windows Update, but I can't figure out what the real cause is.

sfc /scannow didn't give me any violations either.

 

[YoshiNoir]

Hmmm, it also happened right after my OS installed an update too.
By checking what updates have been installed the day before I began to encounter these sound problems, it seems that Microsoft did a very great job in screwing computers with KB973688 (Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 SP2).

Some other suspects may be on the list: KB982018, KB2732487, KB2532531 and KB2529073.

 

[fireberd]

If its updates that did it (I have all the updates and it hasn't affected my RealTek), try a System Restore back to a date PRIOR to those updates and see if it helps. System Restore has an "undo" feature that will undo the System Restore if it doesn't help.

 

[lokiracer]

System restore didn't help.

I think I might have gotten it resolved. I removed everything from startup, uninstalled all my audio devices and rebooted. On reboot, while it was shutting down, it took 30 minutes for it to complete the shut down.

When it came back up, everything appears to be working.

 

[fireberd]

Hmm, something in startup was screwing things up. Look at the startup for any Realtek entry and disable that. The Creative's are OK if you are using the SoundBlaster.

 

[YoshiNoir]

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.

 

[lokiracer]

The 13.5 beta drivers? Did you install all the Windows Update also?

I have had 13.4 installed for a month with no problems. The problems started after Windows ran an update.

 

[YoshiNoir]

Nope, it was just Windows 7 SP1 with only the ATI drivers and the SB drivers.

 

[YoshiNoir]

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.