Ashampoo and Audacity not finding a sound card

Hi, after upgrading from Win 8.1, sound was fine thru laptop speakers/headphones except (so far) for Ashampoo programs and the latest Audacity, which reported they could find no sound card.

Programs like VLC, Winamp, Zoom player, convertors from Aiseesoft, Imtoo, Aimersoft etc etc etc were fine.

This is an HPG60 214 EM laptop, using a Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221 driver vn 4.0.44.0, dated 2008.
An attempt to update shows this is the latest, as do (er hum) a couple of driver update programs.

Ashampoo says I need to contact HP, but HP only supported this laptop to Win 7 (it came with Vista).

Any suggestions as to why a few progs don't work and most do would be welcome. I assume this is some sort of low level interface issue which has become apparent in upgrading to Win 10.

So far other posts I've found have been about no sound at all after upgrading.

Thanks.

(Compatibility mode doesn't help, by the way)

Do you have "Stereo Mix" set as the default Recording Device? Audacity defaults to that for recording. You also need Stereo Mix to record audio from the Internet.

You also need the correct sound card driver. If all you have is the generic, basic function, High Definition Audio Driver (device) that says the correct sound driver is not installed.

In Audacity, try recording from each of the choices given
in EDIT, PREFERENCES, DEVICES, RECORDING, DEVICE:

That's what I did and one of them worked.

Hi, thanks, it's not recording that's the problem (yet!) - simply playing. Sorry for not being specific enough.
Thus if I import an audio file into Audacity and try to play it, v 2.0.3 plays the file, later versions don't - not finding a sound card.

My laptop has no 'stereo mix' option- and never has had, alas. That HP limitation has been a cause of frustration noted by others. The driver is Conexant HD Smart Audio 221 v4.58.0.0, 2008. There's nothing later available from HP.

Others have reported (in Audacity's forum) finding v2.0.3 worked for them, which is why I tried it.

*** Interestingly Windows 10 has just popped up with a message saying sthg like 'Driver enhancements for Conexant HD smart audio 221 have been causing you some problems. Would you like to turn them off?'

Any ideas?

Ashampoo is still working on this, they say today. They asked me for several log files generated by their test tools a while back.

The problem with Audacity and particularly older HP laptops running Conexant drivers is better known, but I know of nothing being done to fix it.

Thanks Antilope, hidden devices was already enabled. Noted you mentioned Recording- my problem is playback. E.g. in Audacity, load a sound file & try to play it.

In the Audacity forum I found a reference to Audacity not working for some beyond v2.03- exactly my case. Audacity confirmed they had made some significant changes in later versions.

Audacity Forum View topic - InternalPortAudio error since windows 10 update
- a four page thread on this topic.

This was the Audacity rep's recommendation:
"The recommended fix is to install Windows 10 drivers (if available) for all the devices you are using (internal and external), obtained from the device manufacturers' sites. You have not said what devices you have so we can't comment further on those. (I gave the exact model of the laptop and version of the driver)

Or go back to your previous version of Windows. If you upgraded over the top of your previous Windows there is a button in the Settings app to go back to previous Windows. The button is there for a month."

Ah well, can't expect everything to work..and I don't HAVE to use Audacity...