Windows – c-media / gigaware usb headset driver

headsetusbwindows 7

I have a USB headset (made by Gigaware) which has been working fine for years in my Win 7 machine. But now the device shows up as 'C-media USB headset' in the 'unknown' devices part of Device Manager with no drivers and any automatic search is unable to find the drivers. Note, the driver always listed as 'C-media USB Headset'.

My hunch is that either PNP is not working fully–uninstalling and re-inserting does put the device back into the unknown part. Or driver files are not being found online. I have downloaded software from cmedia.com.tw but those did not work. Also, note I never needed any installation media nor were they supplied.

The headphone is fine–works fine in my Windows 8 Acer W510 tablet.

May be I could delete some registry key and/or some driver dll files to remove some caching to start from scratch but don't know which files to delete?

* Some more info On all the USB Ports not only is the headphone is recognized as 'C-media' but also, for some months, my Nokia Lumia 920 is not being recognized as a device–the phone used to. So, perhaps, there is some PnP issue?***

Any idea?
Thanks.

Best Answer

Figured out the problem: It was the USB mouse in my computer which was the culprit. While the mouse itself worked fine it was disrupting other USB devices to work. Specifically, my Nokia Lumia 920 phone, which was recognized before, stopped being recognized while connected via a micro USB cable. Similarly, the C-media Headphone device started showing as an 'unknown device'.

I replaced the mouse with another USB mouse, and voila!, computer not only recognizes the Lumia 920 (though I had to download some software for that) but also the C-Media headset started showing correctly.

BTW, another user had reported similar problem elsewhere on the web, related to his/her mouse crashing. That gave me the clue.

@Karan: Thanks for your help again.

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