Windows 8 Windows 8 cannot see my soundcard

pietercape

Active Member
I have a Cantatis Overture 192 soundcard an d previously ran it in Vista SP2 with no problems. I recently upgraded to Windows 8 Pro build 9200.

I cannot get Windows to see the soundcard. I have downloaded and installed the driver from the manufacturer and ran the installation as administrator in compatibility mode with Vista and also tried compatibility mode Windows 7. Accordind to cCantatis their Driver is compatible with Windows 7 (Cantatis - Overture 192 High Performance 24-bit 192kHz Audio Interface Details) and according to this post (Audio Device Technologies for Windows) there is little difference in sound architecture between Win 7 and Win 8.

I have tried every avenue including the troubleshooters, adding devices etc. but as Windows does not show the card anywhere in devices I don't know what to do next.

Any suggestions?
 
Try contacting the sound card manufacturer, perhaps they have plans to release a driver?
 
I have tried that but the manufacturer is not responding.
According to the Microsoft webpage quoted in my post Win 8 was developed with compatibility in mind and that there is little difference in the sound architecture between Win 8 and Win 7. If this is so I do not understand why the current driver software does not work if it is compatible with Win 7 and Win 8 offers the option to run the software in compatibility mode with Vista and Win 7?
 
Found this. Yopu cannot use the Control Panel, but:

Search for the following registry keys in regedit (edit all of them):

VA_CPLAutoSR (set to 0 = no auto sample rate, 1 = auto sample rate)
VA_CPLSelectSR (set as follows, in hexadecimal, I set to 0x0e that is 192kHz):

0x00: 48 KHz (default)
0x01: 24 KHz
0x02: 12 KHz
0x03: 9.6 KHz
0x04: 32 KHz
0x05: 16 KHz
0x06: 8 KHz
0x07: 96 KHz
0x0E: 192 KHz
0x0f: 64 KHz
0x08: 44.1 KHz
0x09: 22.05 KHz
0x0A: 11.025 KHz
0x0B: 88.2 KHz
0x0C: 176.4 KHz
 
Many Thanks Davehc,

I know nothing about programming or scripting but reading your post it seems that you want to change the registry key from a default sample rate setting of 48KHz to enabling selection of multiple sample rates as my sound card can process sample rates up to 192KHz.

I created a restore point (as I am sure to make a mess of things) and thought to look at the registry entry to see if I can figure out how to do this. I went to regedit VA_CPLAutoSR but got error message: Cannot import VA_CPLAutoSR: Error opening file. There may be a disk or file system error.

I tried regedit VA_CPLSelectSR and got the same error message.

I tried to find these registry entries in the ROOT, CURRENT_USER, LOCAL_MACHINE, USERS,and CURRENT_CONFIG directories but could not find them.

I also searched HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software directory but there is no entry for Cantatis. I installed the drivers from Cantatis and it shows as an installed program in Control Panel and there are files in c:\Program Files X86 there are no registry entries as in a portable installation.

I hope all this means something to you and apologize for my ignorance.
 
I have a Cantatis Overture 192 soundcard an d previously ran it in Vista SP2 with no problems. I recently upgraded to Windows 8 Pro build 9200.

I cannot get Windows to see the soundcard. I have downloaded and installed the driver from the manufacturer and ran the installation as administrator in compatibility mode with Vista and also tried compatibility mode Windows 7. Accordind to cCantatis their Driver is compatible with Windows 7 (Cantatis - Overture 192 High Performance 24-bit 192kHz Audio Interface Details) and according to this post (Audio Device Technologies for Windows) there is little difference in sound architecture between Win 7 and Win 8.

I have tried every avenue including the troubleshooters, adding devices etc. but as Windows does not show the card anywhere in devices I don't know what to do next.

Any suggestions?

Pieter have you checked device manager to see if there's a yellow question mark? If so you might be able to install the drivers through the back door to to speak. Post if you can see the question mark and I'll post the method for you.
 
Hi kemical,

No this sound card is not listed anywhere in Device Manager. These are the only sound related items listed:

Envy 24 Family Audio Controller WDM
Microsoft Lifecam
Realtek High Definition Audio

None of these have either "!" or "?" next to them.

I checked every item listed in device manager, no "!" or "?" marks anywhere.

It seems to me that the drivers for this card are somehow not installing. I am guessing that the only way that the OS can detect a device is through the drivers? In other words the mere physical presence of the card in the slot is not enough to let the OS detect it?
 
Correct. Unless the os has some way of detecting it, usually by carrying it's own set of software for that piece of hardware, then the os won't even know it exists.
Does your motherboard have onboard sound? That way you'll at least have some sound until at such time the manufacturer releases some drivers.
 
Yes, I up-dated the Realtek drivers and I have sound.

I will keep trying to reach the manufacturer but they are not responding to e-mail and there is no answer at the telephone numbers given. Seems like this was an expensive mistake?
 
It does seem a great shame as it looks to be a really nice card. I guess you've tried windows update or at least it hasn't come up with anything relating to that card?

I just remembered a tip from a while ago. Why not try the card in a different slot if you have one?
 
Hi kemical
Yes, I tried Windows Update. It is too bad as this is a really excellent card but it was expensive, in 2009 I paid $430, it was on promotion.

It so happens that I do have an empty slot. I will uninstall the driver and move the card to another slot, follow the manufacturers installation instructions (which I have) and see what happens. Who knows, you may just have identified the magic wand!

Thanks all for your suggestions, I will keep this thread updated.
 
Hi kemical,

Moved the card to another slot, re-installed the drivers as per the manufacturers website - no luck. Windows is still not detecting the card.

Thanks for the suggestion anyway. If there are any more ideas out there, I will try anything!
 
Just a thought, have you tried entering the bios and disabling the onboard sound?
 
I would need very detailed instructions to do that. I am familiar with computers but my knowledge is limited. Willing to try !

What I do not understand is why Windows did not detect the card when I moved it to another slot. When I installed this card the first time and and switched the PC on Vista immediately detected the card and the Hardware Wizard asked what to do. This was before any software/drivers were installed.

Why is this not happening now?
 
After doing some googling and a bit of reading I suspect your sound driver works in conjunction with the WDDM or windows display driver model. This was updated from 1.1 to 1.2 with windows 8 so this may account for the difficulties but it's only a guess.. :)

Something else I discovered on my travels was the process for installing the driver under windows 7. It seems that this card was really designed for vista but could still be used under win 7. It occurred to me that it might be worth going through the process outlined as you just never know.. Try following the process from the place marked in red making sure you've removed the driver beforehand and that you choose win vista not win 7.

21. How do I get the Overture 192 Audio Interface to work with Windows 7?

If you use the latest Cantatis Overture 192 drivers available here then you don't have to do anything special as the latest installer works smoothly on Windows 7. However, if you are installing older drivers then you may need to follow the process below.
Windows 7 is the latest operating system from Microsoft, which is built on the foundation of Windows Vista. As such, the Vista drivers supplied with the Overture 192 will work with Windows 7 but they must be installed in a slightly different way.
We've tested this process and the Overture 192 software on the Windows 7 Release Candidate downloaded from Microsoft to make sure that you can get going as soon as Windows 7 is released officially.
Install the Overture 192 Audio Interface card as described in the User Guide, start up Windows 7 and log in as normal.
Insert the Overture 192 software CD into the CD or DVD tray of your Windows 7 computer and allow the Cantatis Overture 192 Control Application to install then click on Close.
When the installer attempts to install the Overture 192 driver it will not succeed and an error will be displayed. Click on OK to close the error then in the Install Wizard Completed dialogue click on Finish to stop the driver installation process.
Now perform the following procedure to install the Overture 192 driver:
1. Open the Start menu and select Computer, to display the explorer window containing the devices in your system.
2. In the explorer window right-click on the Cantatis Overture 192 CD or DVD drive and select Open from the menu to open an explorer window showing the contents of the Overture 192 installation CD.
3. Double-click on the Driver folder to show the driver installation files.
4. Right-click on the Setup.exe application in this folder and select Troubleshoot compatibility from the menu. Make sure you use the Setup.exe in the Driver folder and not the one in the top level folder of the CD.
5. In the Program Compatibility dialogue, select the Troubleshoot program option then select The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won't install or run now and then click on Next.
6. In the list of Windows versions that are displayed, select Windows Vista and then click on Next.
7. Review your settings and then click on Start the program... to start the driver installer (there may be a short delay before the installer appears depending on the performance of your computer).
Follow the driver installation process for Windows Vista as described in the Overture 192 User Guide and when the installation is complete and you have restarted your computer then the Overture 192 Audio Interface will function in Windows 7 the same way as it does in Windows Vista.

Reference:

Frequently Asked Questions at Cantatis
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you can post the model name of the motherboard I could probably tell you exactly what to do. Usually you can download the manual from the manufacturer.
 
Hi kemical,
Many Thanks for the trouble that you are going to to try and help me! I don't know how I missed the Cantatis Windows 7 post. I will try that later today.

Here is the motherboard info:

Manufacturer : Dell Inc.
Mainboard : Dell 0N826N
Bios : Dell Inc.
Chipset : Intel G31/G33/G35
Physical Memory : 4096 MB DDR2-SDRAM
LPC bus : Yes
PCI Bus : Yes
Bus PCI-Express : Yes
USB Bus : Yes
SMBus/i2c Bus : Yes
Bus HyperTransport : No
Bus QPI : No
Bus CardBus : No
Bus FireWire : No

ESCD : No

PnP : Yes

PCI : Yes

ISA : Yes

AGP : No

USB : Yes

PCMCIA : No

Smart Battery : No



Boot Information :

Selectable Boot : Yes

CD-ROM Boot : Yes

PC Card (PCMCIA) Boot : N
I20 Boot : No

LS-120 Boot : Yes

1394 Boot : No

ATAPI ZIP Boot : Yes

Network Boot : Yes

UEFI : No

Virtual Machine : No



Features :

VT-x : No

VT-d : No

TXT : No

TPM : No

Intel ME : No

VA : No

SPI Flash : No

Hope this makes sense to you!
 
Hi,
thanks for posting the info. You can enter the bios by pressing F2 as soon as you see the first screen on boot up. Once in the bios you'll see that it has a rudimentary menu with the escape key being the means to exit from either the bios or a bios category you might have entered. Unfortunately there is no manual for your motherboard but if you go through each of the categories until you see a setting entitled:

Onboard Audio: Enable/disable

The actual setting might be named something slightly different but at least you know what your looking out for. If you do manage to find it, disable it and then press exit to get back to the beginning menu of the bios. Now to exit the bios once you've actually changed something you'll need to have that setting saved so look for 'save and exit'. This name again is an approximation but you get the idea.

To enable the sound again just reverse the process.
 
Hi kemical,
The solution offered by Cantatis to install the driver in a Windows 7 environment resulted in the following error message when trying to install driver (second part of the procedure) "Install Wizard can't find the proper component for the current platform"

I guess this means that there was a change from Win 7 to Win 8.

Ironically I got much further with the installation just doing it normally. In fact the Cantatis installer confirms that the installation was completed with no failures.

What I have found is that the Driver appears to be from VIA, it seems that it is the ENVY24 series. (Had a glimpse of this as the installation software was running)

I am now searching the VIA website and forums for info and will post anything new that may come up.

If all this fails I will try the BIOS option!
 
Thanks for the update Pieter. Shout if you need any further help on this.
 
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