# Disabled Conexant HD smartaudio 221 driver and cannot re enable



## Sounds321 (Aug 25, 2008)

Hi, I currently face a problem with my audio driver. First off, I right-clicked the sound in the system tray, went to playback devices and disabled the Conexant HD smartaudio 221 driver. It disappeared on the list though i checked it through System Info and the status says ok. I can't seem to find out how to re enable this audio driver. I tried a system restore to before i disabled the driver...coincidently the system restore failed though it did not specify the issue. Please help, I have HP pavillion dv6700 with vista 32 home premium.


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## Sounds321 (Aug 25, 2008)

Oh and i forgot to mention, this is for a playback device.


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## Sounds321 (Aug 25, 2008)

Some more info...

It seems that disabling a audio driver from the system tray is different from disabling it in the Device Manager. I would guess it would do the same thing but the changes don't appear on the other screen. I tried to update the driver software...but it says windows encountered an error while trying to install the software. I'm guessing that disabling a driver from the system tray is possibly problematic.


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## Metahound (Jun 11, 2009)

I went through the rather cumbersome registration process to post an answer to help anyone who gets the same problem I had. Took me about 2 hours to figure this one out :upset:

*Background*: I have exactly the same operating system as this poster, and I did exactly the same thing in disabling the speakers, with the same result.

*The Fix*: 

Open up "Sounds", click on the "Playback" tab. 


Right click in the box that is displayed. This should bring up a message saying "show disabled devices". 


Click on that, select Conexant smartaudio 221.


 Double click on that, and then down at the bottom where it says "device usage", click on "use this device(enable)".

*Problem solved*.


Stupid programming on behalf of the conexant team I have to say.


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