My solution for No Audio -- Conexant drivers and Windows 7 x64

Question

My son and I have the L2000 laptop that came with 32 bit XP and used the Conexant chipset for Audio. I had been using an SB Audigy PCMCIA card so I am not sure when Audio was really lost; however, he noticed it when I upgraded his PC. I scoured various forums looking for 64 bit  Windows 7 drivers for Conexant audio but to no avail. Microsoft and Conexant both said that HP should supply the drivers. By the way HP, the Conexant website says that they do not supply drivers even though they make the chipsets "at the request of the OEM's." Another post said that HP was not going to supply these drivers for Windows 7. The solution from HP for my model and Windows 7 was the "HP Software Advisor" which was 67MB and totaly useless. It appears that this is a very common problem. Anyway, here is what you do:
First you need 2 files which ironically enough come from HP, they are SP35558.exe and SP35558.cva They contain the Conexant drivers for Vista x64. (I subsequently have found the 32 bit drivers and the procedure should be very similar except the files are SP34789.exe and SP34789.cva). Type the following into your browser address bar ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/ About half way down you will find the sub-directory with these files. Just right click each one and save to your desktop.
Double click SP35558.cva and tell Windows to use Notepad to open it. Scroll about half way down to "[Operating Systems]" and after "WV64UL=OEM" insert:
W764HB=OEM
W764HP=OEM
W764PR=OEM
W764UL=OEM
( For 32 bit systems use W732HB=OEM, etc.)
I next went up about 10 lines to "[System information]" and added
SysId3=0x3091
SysName3=HP Pavilion ze2000 series
SysId4=0x3096
SysName4=Compaq presario M2000 series
SysId5=0x3097
SysName5=Compaq Presario M2000 series
SysId6=0x3097
SysName6=HP Special Edition L2000 series
SysId7=0x3093
SysName7=Compaq Presario M2000 series
SysId8=0x3093
SysName8=HP Special Edition L2000 series
I got this information from another cva file on my PC at C;/swsetup/ This is the directory where HP updates default to.
After modding the cva file, I saved it to C;/swsetup/sp35558/
I then executed the SP35558.exe file. It did not work the first time -- I missed a line in my cva file. However, I then manually installed the Conexant drivers as follows and voila I had sound, nice crisp clear sound.
Under Device Manager, right click "Multimedia Audio Device" under "Other" and choose "Update Driver" Then" Browse your PC" and "Choose from a list". Select "Sound, audio and game controllers", then Conexant, then "Have Disk" . Browse to C:/swsetup/sp35558/ and open "cp6308Ba.inf" (64bit remember). Now choose "OK" and ignore any warnings about incompatibility, WHQL, etc. Give it plenty of time, you might think you are in a loop, but you are not. Congratulations, you are done.
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Answer 1

I thought that I would recompile my answer and then mark this thread as solved since it was not a post about a problem but rather how I solved a very common problem that might be of benefit to others.
My son and I have the L2000 laptop that came with 32 bit XP and used the Conexant chipset for Audio. I had been using an SB Audigy PCMCIA card so I am not sure when Audio was really lost; however, he noticed it when I upgraded his PC. I scoured various forums looking for 64 bit  Windows 7 drivers for Conexant audio but to no avail. Microsoft and Conexant both said that HP should supply the drivers. By the way HP, the Conexant website says that they do not supply drivers even though they make the chipsets "at the request of the OEM's." Another post said that HP was not going to supply these drivers for Windows 7. The solution from HP for my model and Windows 7 was the "HP Software Advisor" which was 67MB and totaly useless. It appears that this is a very common problem. Anyway, here is what you do:
First you need 2 files which ironically enough come from HP, they are SP35558.exe and SP35558.cva They contain the Conexant drivers for Vista x64. (I subsequently have found the 32 bit drivers and the procedure should be very similar except the files are SP34789.exe and SP34789.cva). Type the following into your browser address bar ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp35501-36000 About half way down you will find these files. Just right click each one and save to your desktop.(The 32 bit files are in a different subdirectory at ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp??????-??????)
Double click SP35558.cva and tell Windows to use Notepad to open it. Scroll about half way down to "[Operating Systems]" and after "WV64UL=OEM" insert:
W764HB=OEM
W764HP=OEM
W764PR=OEM
W764UL=OEM
( For 32 bit systems use W732HB=OEM, etc.)
I next went up about 10 lines to "[System information]" and added
SysId3=0x3091
SysName3=HP Pavilion ze2000 series
SysId4=0x3096
SysName4=Compaq presario M2000 series
SysId5=0x3097
SysName5=Compaq Presario M2000 series
SysId6=0x3097
SysName6=HP Special Edition L2000 series
SysId7=0x3093
SysName7=Compaq Presario M2000 series
SysId8=0x3093
SysName8=HP Special Edition L2000 series
I got this information from another cva file on my PC at C:/swsetup/   (This is thedefault  directory for HP updates.)
After modding the cva file, I saved it to C;/swsetup/sp35558/
I then executed the SP35558.exe file and voila I had sound, nice crisp clear sound.
The use of the cva file is to streamline the driver install and it is kind of cool if it works. If you cannot find it or you are not successful the first time or you do not want to bother with modding anything, do not worry, the manual install will work for sure.
Run sp35558.exe to extract everything and let it strike out. Then go to Device Manager and update the driver manually as follows:
Under Device Manager, right click "Multimedia Audio Device" under "Other" and choose "Update Driver" Then "Browse your PC" and "Choose from a list". Select "Sound, audio and game controllers", then "Conexant", then "Have Disk". Browse to C:/swsetup/sp35558/ and open "cp6308Ba.inf" (64bit remember). Now choose "OK" and ignore any warnings about incompatibility, WHQL, etc. Give it plenty of time, you might think you are in a loop, but you are not. Congratulations, you are done.
Hope this helps.