no audio driver on Windows 7 (64bit) guest

[TheOtherPhilC]

Thanks to this thread, I was able to solve the driver issue by downloading and installing the RealTek 64 bit driver for Windows 7. The advice to simply delete the original device and reboot the guest does NOT work. You just end up with the same "no driver found" problem.

What puzzles me is why there is no entry in the user guide for 3.1.x about the Win7 x64 audio driver issue, and the necessity for individual users who want audio in a Win 7 x64 guest on a Win7 x64 host to first successfully search this forum, then figure out which advice is correct, then go online for a 3rd party driver. Seems to me there are likely to be numerous VBox users running into this problem.

I am also puzzled why VBox 3.1 does not provide a Win7 x64 compatible sound controller emulation that has a Microsoft-supplied driver in the first place.

My host audio happens to be ICH7 AC'97 audio provided by the Intel SG31 chipset. Windows 7 x64 (on the host) represents this in the Device Manager under "Sound, video and game controllers" as "High Definition Audio Device", and supplies the driver.

I don't know how the same hardware shows up on a Win7 x32 host. The virtual device that VBox installs is recognized by Win7 x32 as "Intel(r) 82801AA AC'97 Audio Controller" under "Sound, video and game controllers", and a MS driver is automatically installed. No problems.

But, a Win7 x64 guest sees the VBox installed virtual audio device as "Other Device", "Multimedia sound controller", until the realtek driver is installed. It then becomes "Realtek AC'97 Audio" under "Sound, video and game controllers".

It seems to me that a generic "High Definition Audio Device" ought to be easier to emulate than a device that Win7 x64 evidently does not recognize, and also would avoid hassle for users. But, I lack knowledge of the internals.

[TheOtherPhilC]

Since installing the realtek driver (which works fine), I have now discovered that the media player will no longer play wmv on the guest files. It puts up a small still frame, and plays the sound. No video. WMV videos played perfectly on the guest earlier.

dxdiag on the guest (GUI) says no problems. The media player troubleshooter says if video doesn't play I must be missing a codec. But, all codecs seem to be installed.

Is it possible that getting audio working killed the video, or should I be looking a something else?

(Another issue is the VBox process that runs the guest on the host will suddenly go to nearly 100% CPU while the guest machine becomes totally unresponsive. I think I saw other threads on that one.)

[douglasawh]

Since installing the realtek driver (which works fine)

Do you have a link? When I tried to find it, I only found an Ethernet driver.

[ciscoxx]

Same here.

Now sounds work after installing Realtek ac97; But it is very disturbed, delayed and with echo!!

Any tips?

[ciscoxx]

I have solved just by mistake!!!!

If I start a browser in the host machine, play a youtube video and pause it, the output from the guest machine is perfect!!!
As soon as I shut down the web browser in the host machine, the output from the guest re-become delayed and distorted.

By doing so it seems that i initialize pulse in the host and as a consequence i don't have delay and distortion from the guest.


Host: Fedora 12 64bit
Guest: Win 7 64bit
VirtualBox: 3.1.2

[douglasawh]

Is there some sort of log I can give someone to get some help? I install the x64 driver and "Multimedia Audio Controller" still has a yellow exclamation mark after reboot. I'm using Win7 Enterprise. What versions are others using?

[stefan.becker]

http://fedorasolved.org/Members/fenris0 ... rkarounds/

Have a look at priority.

[douglasawh]

http://fedorasolved.org/Members/fenris0 ... rkarounds/

Have a look at priority.

I did the first part of that. Don't know if it helped. Doesn't seem to have hurt anything. My problem was that i was trying to install the High Definition Audio driver. Once I got the one suggested in http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2785 I was good to go. Some pops here and there, but nothing I can't live with.

[lshantz]

There seems to be one key piece of information missing on the many web sites I have visited. Everyone talks about the realtek driver, yada yada.. It still doesn't work for many of us. I think I finally discovered what the problem is.

When you set up the VM the system defaults to an "OSS Audio Driver". This one will NOT work folks!!! So if you have read this far and it isn't working, shut down the guest VM. Go to settings/audio and change it from OSS to ALSA. Reboot. Voilla! Problem solved. I FINALLY have sound. It seems a little choppy, but at least I have some sound.