After the installation or reinstallation of an Operating System on a PC, one of the most common hardware related problems faced by users is with the onboard audio system - and it can be extremely troublesome to fix. Most of the computers with an onboard audio generally use High Definition audio or an AC’97 audio. Both of them are made up of two components, an audio controller chipset, which is normally used to communicate with a different chip placed on the motherboard, better known as an audio codec.

For the VIA chipsets the audio controller hails from VIA clan, and the driver support required is the audio codec which can either be from VIA or can be from the third party vendor. Audio drivers are at the root of most problems attributed to the audio system.

Although the computer can easily identify the audio solution with the help of the audio controller which using VIA, the driver needed for the computer should correspond to the audio codec on the computer’s motherboard. Generally, the onboard audio solutions are of AC’97 audio or HD audio, there are few motherboards available in the market that also have audio controllers connected with the chipset PCI bus.

Therefore, you need to identify your driver’s requirements and accordingly have to determine what kind of onboard audio solution you need for your motherboard. For that, you can easily refer to the manual of your PC which was provided to you when you purchased the system. Often, the manuals detail the ideal requirements, which can be helpful for you to decypher which drivers are right for your system. You can also take the help of the dealer if your PC is a branded one. Otherwise, you can visit the site of the manufacturer or the manufacturing company of the motherboard where it’s possible to check for the exact specifications.

Thankfully, there are many high quality driver fixing solutions on the market which are capable of detecting the correct audio driver for you and replacing it if necessary. So you don’t always have to go to the extreme means of digging out your old manuals!

If there is confusion regarding the make and model of the motherboard, the user can run a program called SiSoft Sandra and then click on the information icon of motherboard to get detailed information. The software also provides a guide which helps the user to identify the make and the model. Once the user is aware of the make and model, he or she can easily find out what kind of audio solution the system needs by referring to the website of the manufacturing company.

Any respectable company manufacturer should have an online resource of audio drivers for you to download free of charge. Alternatively you can let an automated driver fixing solution detect and download the files that you need to get your audio functioning correctly.

You will find a considerable number of audio drivers available. Such as Analog Devices, C-Media, Sound Blaster Creative Labs, ESS, Philips, Realtek, Sigmatel,SiS, VIA,Yamaha, etc., all of which are available according to the needs of the motherboard of the user. If you have an audio driver installed in your PC, you can also use the audio driver software updates to improve the system’s performance.

The analog devices having up to date and compatible audio codecss helps when it comes to improving the performance of different applications that make use of your Windows audio system. The C-Media audio solutions support all the PC audio peripheral components counting the USB speakers and adapters, PCI sound cards, VOIP accessories and any hi-tech wireless audio device.

Audio drivers are not fun to have to fix, and can disrupt your system performance considerably. Ensure that you keep all drivers up to date and use a good driver clean-up utility to get rid of bad files.