Drivers for the SIGMATEL STAC 9228 C-Major HD Audio, on a dell Inspiron 1420


This is a documentation post, and may not be useful, to my regular readers. They are requested to ignore it.


I have been breaking my head over this small problem, for the past two days, and finally found a way, to solve the Issue. I though that I should document it here, since many others are still facing the problem.
So here is the History. I got a Dell Inspiron 1420, with Vista installed on it. Since I wanted to run some programs that run properly on Xp only, I had to downgrade the System to Windows Xp (some might say, that Xp is actually an upgrade, instead of a downgrade, but that is a debate for another day).

So here is what I do:
1]Wipe the entire hardrive with GParted.
2]Install Windows Xp SP2 from an Orignal Media
3]Install the Windows SP3
4]Install the drivers, downloaded from the Dell site, one by one.

I got everything to work, except for the Audio.
After searching here and there, I found that a lot of people were facing the same problem. there were a couple of solutions at : http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7813_102-0.html?forumID=5&threadID=264247&messageID=2588300 and http://www.davidreedonline.com/wordpress/2007/08/03/installing-windows-xp-on-the-dell-inspiron-1420 But none of them helped. The Sigmatel company itself does not offer any drivers for download.

I gave up, and was about to reinstall Vista, so as to have a Dual Boot Machine. When I happend on to this question Experts-exchange (these people are unethical #%$&!@ of the highest order, and you won't get to see their answers, unless you have a referral from Google. So here is the cached copy of the question) at http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:LAi_EE9bgSAJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Software/System_Utilities/Drivers/Q_23511686.html+http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/System_Utilities/Drivers/Q_23511686.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=in.

A guy called clutch23, gave a solution which worked for me.

Turns out that there is a bug with Windows, which is responsible for it. This has been documented as kb835221
As this Bug is applicable on to Xp SP1 and SP2, but not for SP3 (which is funny because, the bug is actually there even after SP3), the patch does not work for XP SP3.

So here is how I got the Audio to Work:
1]Uninstalled Xp SP3
2] Downloaded the driver from : http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R171789&SystemID=LATITUDE%20PRECISION%20M90&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=8907&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=3&fileid=235761
3]Ran the Installer till it unzipped the setup, and then pressed Cancel
4]Went to the Unzipped Location
...\R171789\HDAQFE\win2k_xp\us
5]Run the kb835221.exe
6]Reboot
7]Then run the R171789\setup.exe - this time it found a driver and it worked!
8]Install Xp SP3

Now I have an up-to-date machine, which works perfectly. Hope that helps anyone who is searching for the solution.

=================
Please let me know, if this helped you out by commenting on is post.

4 Responses to "Drivers for the SIGMATEL STAC 9228 C-Major HD Audio, on a dell Inspiron 1420"

Anonymous said... Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:00:00 am

i got the same problem. wish i could use this solution. but my xp comes with sp3 integrated. so i guess i either wait till a new patch comes out, or go back to sp2.

laurent said... Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:31:00 pm

i tried unsuccesfully the solution, without SP3, on my inspiron 1440, with no success.
any help would be great
lrr72@hotmail.com

Ghe said... Friday, November 13, 2009 10:16:00 pm

works on my problem...actually i knew this troubleshooting...bur i forget...i was just reinstalling my xp sp2 then i googled this troubleshooting and after an hour googling i finally found it...thanks!

Audio Drivers said... Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2:00:00 pm

Thanks a lot for your time and patience about this info



Dell Inspiron mini 10 Drivers

Post a Comment