I have an audio related problem with a newly acquired PC running Windows 7 x64 Professional. I would like to know if there is an alternative to the Windows 7 audio drivers and if it is possible to totally remove the Windows 7 drivers from the system. In other words, I don't want to use the Windows drivers at all. Thanks in advance.

 

Do you mean for ASIO? Kinda recd, rly. Just check manufacturer website. Ditto for device too, I guess.

 

update drivers or maybe since its a new computer the driver or device isnt compatible with windows 7?

...get a usb/ external sound card and it should come with its own drivers/ control panel .

 

@famouslut and @johndoehizzle I have the latest Windows audio driver installed but latency is very high. I just want to remove the Windows drivers and use third party ones like ASIO. I just don't know whether it is possible to do so. I do have an external audio interface, however,if I'm away from home I want to be able to run my DAW (Ableton) with as little latency as I possibly can.

 

Can't you just turn it off or uninstall it in Device Manager (click on "Start" button, type in "Device Manager", etc.)?

 

that would be the way to go if Windows even allows you to toss their native crap..
if not, you are stuck selecting your ASIO driver of choice..and just saving it in Ableton...
which should remain the default.. unless you change it...

that might be about the closest you get to not seeing other "crap" you don't want..

 

It doesn't matter if the drivers are installed or not. What matters, is which driver you select in your DAW.
You can try ASIO4ALL if your external audio card drivers aren't good enough or are giving you more latency.

 

Also, you can disable the onboard audio card directly from the BIOS. That way, Windows won't even see it. I did it in the past with an onboard audio card what was just annoying.

 

not sure that's great advice.. but if he doesn't have an ASIO sound card or interface yet.. it may be the only way to go.
an audio interface should have typically the most stable ASIO drivers..

 

As I understand ASIO drivers depends on system audiodrivers. They don't cope with an audiocard directly. May be third-party drivers supplied by audiocard manufacturers do but I suspect they don't.

Latency doesn't depend on audiodrivers only. It's a characteristic of your system in whole.
Measure your latency using DPC Latency Checker or Latency Monitor.
https://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_whatsnew
Try to disable WiFi (if you use it) and use cable instead.
Videodrivers are able to increase latency too. You could try to disable your DISCRETE videocard in Device Manager. The internal videocard (like INTEL video embedded in the processor) MUST work, the system won't start without videocard.

Turning the internal soundcard off in Device manager is a good advice. In such case drivers of the internal soundcart doesn't affect your system.

 

can you explain?.. these two statements seem to be contradictory.

 

Just set the latency with your audio card driver no?!

 

ASIO drivers don't depend on system audio drivers at all. That's the whole point of ASIO drivers - to go around the WDM [Windows Driver Model] and "talk to hardware" directly. Everything else will give you more latency and usually use more CPU also. ASIO4All just uses your WDM drivers, so it's just an ASIO emulation layer between your audio app, WDM, and your audio hardware.

ASIO4All should be used as a last resort, that is if your audio interface doesn't have any ASIO drivers available. I personally don't know of any... even Creative cards ["SoundBlaster"] and Realtek have ASIO drivers these days. The tricky thing is that ASIO drivers can vary in quality [read stability and latency performance] a lot, so when you have a card with such dodgy ASIO driver it is often better to use one of the generic ASIO drivers like ASIO4all, Steinberg Cubase ASIO [free btw.], or FruityLoops ASIO..

 

Indeed the name of the audio interface manufacturer would help. It goes a long way to define if the audio drivers (on the asio side) are at fault, potentialy.

 

If you don't want Windows audio drivers for your onboard [?] card installed, it is best to disable it in BIOS, but it is fine if you just disable the driver in the Device Manager. If you just uninstall it, Windows will install it again automatically... so that's not really a solution.

I hope you'll resolve the issue! What issue btw? Instability? Big latency? What's your audio card?

 

I can be mistaken but...
Our computers work thanks to an operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.). There is no a program or a driver that could address to hardware directly. All processes must be synchronized, otherwise the chaos begins. So, there is a layer in OS (system drivers) that provides this interaction between programs and hardware. It's unavoidable. In any case, soundcard or audiointerface always use ports (USB, Thunderbolt etc.), so system drivers are involved.
If you really intrested, look at this:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../audio/getting-started-with-wdm-audio-drivers

 

@Luka
Another advice.
Set your computer's power plan for high performance: Control Panel > Power Options and select "High Performance".
I think it will solve your problem.
It's ridiculous why I forgot about it!

 

Last edited: Jul 25, 2018

Could you tell us where to find the a.m. Steinberg driver? Thanks for the info

 

WDM drivers are system audio drivers. Windows audio drivers.

 

Plenty of good advice so far. If your device came with an ASIO driver, disable the Windows driver for the internal sound system in the device manager or the mixer (click speaker icon on task bar & select Mixer>System Sounds>Playback. Dbl-Click device(s) to disable).

I am using Windows 8 with ASIO4All, Steinberg Generic ASIO, Magix ASIO on an older Dell laptop with good results.
The Magix ASIO driver works the best. The FL Studio ASIO driver has a higher latency count and, is just a wrapper for WASAPI.