I have been trying to install a bit of software which keeps crashing on startup. I have narrowed down the cause of this to a corrupted sound card driver install. I have an on-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio codec on a Dell Latitude D830 Laptop.
I am trying to install a piece of music software called Native Instruments Traktor. I have an external sound card that I use with this but I am unable to start Traktor currently because it fails when trying to initialise the sound drivers that can be used with it. I have searched the many forums and spoke to Native Instruments technical support and they suggested that I uninstall/disable all sound devices and then re-install Traktor.
This is how I have found a problem with the SigmaTel Audio Device. If I try and disable it by going to: Device Manager>Sound Video & Game Controllers>SigmaTel High Definition Audio codec>Right Click properties>Device Usage>Do not use this device (Disable) it crashes Windows XP with a stop error (A blue screen which dumps the memory).
I have tried to update the drivers with the same results. I have tried un-installing the sound card (same result) and I have tried disabling the sound card by right clicking and choosing disable rather than going into properties and doing it there.
I am basically stuck with the SigmaTel High Definition sound card which appears to be operating perfectly well but I am sure it has some corrupt file that Traktor needs to access in order to load. I also think that the Dell drivers are trying to access this file when installing/uninstalling/disabling the sound card and hence the crash.
During one error it did report a problem with the sthda.sys file on the blue screen when XP crashed. This was when I tried to disable the sound card from the right click menu rather than through the sound card properties.
Please help. I am stuck.
Kind Regards
Cain
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