Today we’re looking at a 7.1 USB sound card from StarTech.com. USB sound cards are ideal as replacements for broken on-board sound cards, particularly on laptops or small factor systems where installing a PCI or PCI-e sound card isn’t a viable option. This one is a good-sized unit, offering a range of analogue and digital ports including analogue 7.1 surround sound, dual-mic recording and an S/PDIF passthrough.
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Pros
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Summary and Score
StarTech.com’s USB sound card does exactly what it says on the tin, providing a strong range of inputs and outputs in a relatively small package. Installation takes seconds, comprising of little more than plugging everything in and waiting for the drivers to install, then setting a new default input / output device in Windows. Rosetta stone driver download. While the limited S/PDIF interface is unfortunate, there are no other issues to preclude us from recommending this USB sound card.
Design
Let’s take a look at the ports provided by the StarTech.com sound card.
On the front, we have the bulk of the connections: six 3.5mm ports. The first is a headphone output and the second is a line-in port. The remaining four allow for connection of an analogue 7.1 system; if you have a 2.1 or 5.1 system then of course you’ll use a subset of these.
On the left side, we have a pair of microphone inputs, one each for the left and right channels. If you’re just using a single 3.5mm input, you just use the left channel.
On the back, we have the USB input (the square connector often used in printers). This cable is provided in the box. We also have the S/PDIF passthrough interface, comprising of one S/PDIF out and one S/PDIF in.
On the top of the unit, we have some indicator lights and buttons. The first light flashes (dimly and slowly) while audio input is detected, while the second activates when the microphone is muted. The buttons allow for adjusting the volume (up, down, mute) and muting the microphone.
It’s a fairly compact piece of kit, although it is larger than simpler USB sound cards that have just one or two 3.5mm ports. It does well sitting on a desk, but pulling it out on the train might be a bit of a hassle. The silver colour is inoffensive, and thankfully the LEDs are too. After tucking it under my monitor, I didn’t notice it too often.
Testing
The StarTech.com 7.1 USB Sound Card provides a good initial impression, with its plasticky frame providing all of the ports you could need in a logical arrangement. Plug the provided USB cable into your PC, connect up your headset and speakers, and wait for the drivers to install (a CD is provided). Once you set the USB sound card to be your default audio device, everything just works.
I’m a big fan of the headphone output, which allows me to switch between headphones (for competitive gaming) and speakers (for music and videos) without plugging or unplugging anything. I spent my life unplugging and re-plugging my headphones with the Creative T50s, which definitely got wearisome after a while. Here, it’s just a case of putting the headphones on your head and turning off the speakers, and you’re away. The only better implementation would be a switch on the sound card that lets you toggle which output is used, so I don’t have to keep turning my speakers on and off each time.
The microphone inputs are sensible enough, although I feel the quality isn’t as clear as it could be. I had no issues using the microphone input for chatting to my mates when gaming, but I might look for an alternative for professional recordings.
There’s no software provided with the sound card, so you’re given no way to adjust the bass, treble, etc. You can do this at the speaker level, or you can install another program in Windows to adjust the EQ, but it would have been nice to have some simple software included on the driver CD.
The StarTech.com sound card does have another annoying limitation. The S/PDIF system is merely a passthrough; you can’t generate an S/PDIF output without an S/PDIF input first. That’s annoying for those that wanted to hook up a digital system with analogue inputs. The microphone quality isn’t top notch, either. I’m using a USB mic for most tasks, so this wasn’t a concern to me, but it impacts potential professional usage of this USB sound card.
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Wrap-up
The StarTech.com 7.1 USB card is a simple but effective solution to sound card woes. If your built-in sound card is broken, lacks inputs or just sucks, then the Startech.com sound card is a great replacement. While the mic quality and lack of true S/PDIF output could preclude this card from some professional uses, it’s a strong option that boasts a good range of ports, rapid setup and an inoffensive look.
-->This article clarifies some confusion that vendors have experienced about how hardware that complies with PCI Power Management (PCI-PM) interacts with device drivers in the operating system and about how PCI-PM integrates with ACPI. For more information, see https://www.uefi.org/specifications
Device drivers and PCI power management
This discussion assumes that you are familiar with how Windows Driver Model (WDM) drivers handle power management events, as described in the current Windows DDK. In general, the responsibilities for device drivers are as follows:
Bus drivers: Bus drivers are responsible for enumerating, configuring, and controlling devices. For PCI-PM, the PCI driver is responsible for reading the PCI-PM registers to determine the capabilities of the hardware. When POWER IRPs request power state changes, the PCI driver writes to the PCI power management registers to set the hardware to different Dx states.
When a device is enabled for wake-up, the PCI driver writes to PCI-PM registers to enable the device to fire PME (ACPI will also take an action, see the next section). Finally, when ACPI determines that the PCI bus is waking the system, the PCI driver scans PCI configuration space looking for which device is asserting PME, disables PME in that device, and notifies the driver for that device.
Device driver: The specific driver for the device is responsible for saving and restoring device context, and requesting power state changes as the policy owner for the device. When the device driver receives a POWER IRP requesting a lower device power state change, the device driver is responsible for saving any proprietary device context needed to later turn on the device. In some cases, there may be nothing to save.
PCI-PM registers are strictly the domain of the PCI driver--the IHV's device driver does not need to access any of these registers. Doing so would cause the system to not work reliably. The device driver's responsibility is to perform only proprietary actions.
Integrating ACPI and PCI PM
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Some devices, particularly motherboard video devices in portables, may require both PCI Power Management as well as ACPI Source Language Assembler (ASL) to completely power manage the device. The PCI Power Management registers would control the internal state of a device, such as internal clocks and power planes. ASL would control the external state, such as external clocks and power planes, or in the case of video controllers, ASL would control the video backlights. Note that ASL and PCI-PM can only be combined on motherboard devices.
The OnNow architecture is a layered architecture, handling the integration of the device driver, PCI driver, and ACPI driver (and ASL) naturally. The following scenarios show the order in which drivers are called to handle these devices.
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Note
For the above scenarios to work as described, a WDM driver must forward POWER IRPs correctly as described in the current version of the Microsoft Windows DDK.
Scenario 1: Turning off a device
- Device driver: Saves proprietary device state.
- PCI driver: Saves Plug and Play configuration, disables the device (interrupts and BARs), and puts the device in D3 using PCI-PM registers.
- ACPI driver: Runs ASL code (_PS3 and _OFF for power resources no longer in use) to control the state external to the chip.
Scenario 2: PCI power management and device drivers
- ACPI driver: Runs ASL code (_PS0 and _ON for any OnNow required power resources) to control the state external to the chip.
- PCI driver: Puts the device in D0 using PCI-PM registers and restores Plug and Play configuration (interrupts and BARs--these might be different from what the device was previously on).
- Device driver: Restores proprietary context in the device.
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Scenario 3: Enabling wake-up
- Device driver: Sets proprietary registers in the chip to enable wake-up. For example, in pattern matching network wake-up, this is when the patterns would be programmed into the adapter.
- PCI driver: Sets the wake-up enable bits in the PCI PM registers to allow the device to assert PME.
- ACPI driver: Enables the GPE in the chip set associated with PME (as described by the _PRW object listed under the root PCI bus).
Scenario 4: Wake-up
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- ACPI driver: Wakes and scans the GPE status bits for wake-up events, disabling GPEs for set GPE status bits, and running any _Lxx or _Exx methods associated with set GPE bits. In response to a wake-up notification on the PCI bus, the ACPI driver will complete the PCI driver's WAIT_WAKE IRP to notify the PCI driver that it is waking the system.
- PCI driver: Scans configuration space looking for any devices with a set PME status bit. For each device, it disables PME and completes the WAIT_WAKE IRP for that device to inform the driver that it is asserting wake-up. The PCI driver stops scanning for wake devices when it has made a complete pass through all PCI devices having not found any asserting PME and when PME stops being asserted.
- Device driver: Requests the device be put in D0 (see scenario 2) and sets any proprietary registers in the chip required to handle the wake-up event.
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Call to action on PCI power management and device drivers
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- Integrate ACPI and PCI-PM capabilities into your devices as described in this article.
- The PCI Power Management specification is available at https://www.pcisig.com. This link leaves the Microsoft.com site.
- ACPI Specification available at https://www.uefi.org/specifications. This link leaves the Microsoft.com site.
- The ACPI Component Architecture (ACPICA) compiler can be found at https://acpica.org/downloads/binary-tools.