[SOLVED] Problem with VIA HD Audo driver - cannot continue with the setup program

[jabbadahut]

I have a custom-built system that I put together with the help of a friend of mine back in 2015. I have the 64-bit version of Windows Home installed on it. Things have been going smoothly since I last installed the OS last February. As the thread states, I'm having trouble installing the VIA HD audio driver for my Gigabyte motherboard (model is posted below). I'll try to be brief about what caused this problem, so I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

A couple of days ago I had trouble with a routine Malwarebytes system scan. During the scan, my TV monitor went blank and after a minute it came back on again stating that the Nvidia Geforce Experience program has stopped working. After troubleshooting and resolving that problem I attempted to run the malware scan again. The same problem happened again. So I resolved that problem.

Now today, after picking up the pieces from resolving the problem with my TV monitor and graphics driver needing to be reinstalled (again!) somehow I was hearing sound from my TV instead of my Logitech Z506 speakers. I double checked that all the cables are plugged in. I noticed that somehow the system changed the default sound device from my speakers to my TV monitor.

I thought, "Okay no big deal, I'll just make the speakers to be the default audio device & disable the TV monitor speakers,," and problem solved, right?

Wrong! For the life of me, I can't continue with the setup program to install the VIA HD driver. I've tried downloading the driver from Gigabyte for my model of motherboard, tried downloading the driver from VIA (incidentally, they do not have any driver for Windows 10, except for integrated graphics. Okay, whatever." I even tried the audio driver that has been suggested in another thread. I can't find the specific thread at the moment, but the file name is "VIAHDAud_v11_1000b_08182015.zip" You can find a screenshot here, so you can see what I'm talking about with being unable to continue with the setup program. I had this problem before, and the solution was to remove the installed audio drivers from the device manager & run the setup program again, but that didn't work.

Can anyone throw me a bone to help me with this problem?

System: Widows 10 Home 64-bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P , rev. 1.0
Speakers: Logitech Z506 Surround Sound 5-speaker set

 

[jabbadahut]

Forgot to say that I tried a Windows 8.1 driver from Via as well as Windows 7, but that didn't work either.

 

[jabbadahut]

Well after much searching I finally found a solution in a reddit post but I forgot where. Basically, instead of running the setup program that installs the drivers, go to the device manager, open the "Speakers" section (it may be named differently on each platform) right-click them and select "Update Driver." A window should open up prompting you to either search the internet for the drivers or add them manually from your disk. Select the option to have the computer browse for the drivers by specifying where you saved the driver setup program, making sure that "Include Subfolders" is checked, then click the Browse button.

You won't be able to use the VIA HD Audio Deck, but you can use Windows audio enhancements or use a 3rd party program for that. In my case not being able to use the VIA Audio Deck program wasn't a big deal since the graphic equalizer on it was disabled and I could never figure out why..

I will say this though. The next time I buy a new motherboard I'm going to make darn well sure that the audio driver is made by Realtek, as I never had a problem with that company as much as I had with VIA (as well as many others have), or just simply use a 3rd party sound card & disable the audio driver on my motherboard in the BIOS settings.