Windows – Broken Bootcamp built in audio with macbook Pro mid 2014 win7 x64, SPDIF LED constantly lit

audiobootcampdriverwindows

Hardware: Macbook Pro retina mid 2014 15"

Software: MacOS + bootcamp installed win7 x64 with latest updates

Just recently speakers and headphone port stopped working and the SPDIF red LED light from the headphone socket is now constantly lit (didn't used to be lit at all). Possibly happened as a side effect of windows update, apple software update or NVIDIA driver update or application installation.

Things I've tried with no effect

  • Checking all mixer and volume settings
  • Rolling back recent software installations
  • Looking at installed drivers in Device manager – all audio devices are shown as working correctly, scan for hardware changes doesn't find any extra sound hardware to configure. Updating driver by searching for drivers online doesn't find an updated driver.
  • Using another USB audio device – this device works fine
  • Rebooting into Macos – the built in speakers work fine
  • Rebooting into Windows Safe mode – audio device doesn't seem to be installed (perhaps the driver isn't supported under safe mode).
  • Resetting NVRAM (reboot with commmand option PR)
  • Running System restore – restore points fail to restore except for a few recent ones that don't fix the problem
  • Uninstalling all audio drivers and rerunning bootcamp support software setup.exe (the slightly older download 5.1.5640 version that seems to be the only one that supports my hardware/windows 7 x64 combo)
  • Rolling back NVIDIA driver to version supplied with bootcamp support software
  • Running Intel chipset installers supplied with bootcamp support software
  • Running boot camp setup assistant on MacOS to get more recent drivers – fails as doesn't support my combination of hardware and win7 x64 as documented on Apple support pages
  • Running Apple Software update – no updates available for any drivers.

The installed devices I seem to have even after installing bootcamp are Microsoft High Definition Audio Drivers supporting playback devices for speakers, headphones and SPDIF. There are also a Microsoft system speaker device and nvidia audio drivers (for HDMI audio output)

One telling symptom – plugging in headphones doesn't show the headphone playback device as then being a connected playback devices as I'd expect.

Which audio drivers should I have installed by Bootcamp support software for MBP mid 2014? Which actual audio hardware is present on this MBP – the Apple specs are vague on this point? Is it possible the Bootcamp support software has failed to reinstall the audio drivers correctly?

Has Windows in some way got locked into SPDIF output? Surely this can't be a purely hardware fault as MacOS still works fine?

Any further steps to diagnose this problem?

EDIT details on current audio drivers from 64bit dxdiag

        Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)  Default Sound Playback: Yes  Default Voice Playback: Yes
        Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_1013&DEV_4208&SUBSYS_106B5E00&REV_1003
    Manufacturer ID: 1
         Product ID: 65535
               Type: WDM
        Driver Name: HdAudio.sys
     Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English)
  Driver Attributes: Final Retail
        WHQL Logo'd: Yes
      Date and Size: 11/21/2010 03:24:14, 350208 bytes
        Other Files: 
    Driver Provider: Microsoft
     HW Accel Level: Basic
          Cap Flags: 0xF1F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0  Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
          HW Memory: 0
   Voice Management: No  EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No    I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No

        Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)  Default Sound Playback: No  Default Voice Playback: No
        Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_1013&DEV_4208&SUBSYS_106B5E00&REV_1003
    Manufacturer ID: 1
         Product ID: 65535
               Type: WDM
        Driver Name: HdAudio.sys
     Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English)
  Driver Attributes: Final Retail
        WHQL Logo'd: Yes
      Date and Size: 11/21/2010 03:24:14, 350208 bytes
        Other Files: 
    Driver Provider: Microsoft
     HW Accel Level: Basic
          Cap Flags: 0xF1F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0  Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
          HW Memory: 0
   Voice Management: No  EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No    I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No

Best Answer

Looks like the underlying problem was that the Cirrus 4208 driver installer failed to install any drivers. Not sure what initial problem stopped the driver working but once the driver was uninstalled the bootcamp support software wasn't able to install a replacement driver.

The fix was to manually unpack the Cirrus 4208 driver installer .exe (included in the the bootcamp support software) using 7zip and then update the high definition audio device in device manager by browsing to the folder containing the unpacked Cirrus 4208 installer.

Some posts on the web suggested that it could be fixed by running the Cirrus 4206 driver installer before the running the Cirrus 4208 driver installer but that didn't fix it for me.

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