Windows 7 and Bose Companion 5 speaker system losing sound intermittently.

this JUST started to happen to me.. I spent some time in linux for a day, which has alsa and pulse audio.. Doesn't sound as good as windows. Anyway.. the only thing I can think of is that I disabled my onboard sound card built into the motherboard.. Perhaps that caused Windows to do something funky since it only sees one sound card (the bose)? Which is not really a card but you get it. I knew I would have a problem with USB speakers.. Here it is.

Tested with VLC..  on both operating systems... Wasn't doing this in linux.. Odd. Funny though, they had that driver usb-audio disabled by default..  Listened to REM's automatic for the people as a test.. Known to have good sound.

You have summed up the way I have felt for some time. I solved my problem by purchasing an IMAC a year and a half ago. I will never own another Dell or computer with the Windows (Operating?) System! My Bose speaker system works flawlessly. Microsoft and Dell should learn that what goes around comes around eventually.

Thanks Lee. As a whole, this HP PC should run circles around just about anything. As purchased, it had 8GB RAM, and a .5TB hard drive. It also came with Vista 64-bit which all by itself was a huge nightmare over the long haul. However, it DID run the Bose Companion-5 speakers with no issues. Even when the PC was acting like a real pig, the sound was unaffected. I lost track of how many system events ended up in the system error log file. Occasionally, I would receive a message stating that there was a "fix" available to correct some number of these "events". When I tried to find the fix to download, the usual response was something to the effect of "No Fix Found for This Error". Surprise!! If I was Microsoft, I'd be embarrassed by the number of bugs found over time in Vista. Most likely, some fixes created more bugs. Hard to prove either way since it's virtually impossible to contact a competent software engineer at Microsoft since they're held several layers deep in the support structure. To pay $250/hr to just start a dialogue with Microsoft is ludicrous! The front line of support simply takes your description of the problem, types it in to a "problem" database, and gives you an assortment of possibilities of what could be causing the problem. As your tab at $250/hr increases, at some point the front-line rep will give up, and you can start all over again with the second level. I have no idea how many layers must be "conquered" at $250/hr chatting with reps most likely not fluent in English. I have to think that ordinary consumers aren't going to foot a bill of that magnitude, and most likely not get anything for it. However, that's Microsoft's "plan". If it's broken, go BUY an upgrade. Of course there is no guarantee that what you're buying will solve anything! When I upgraded from Vista 64-bit to Win-7 Pro 64-bit, I was astonished to find that devices which came with my PC were not supported any longer. What! I'm not talking about anything extravagant. For one, just the only CDRW/DVD-RW Blu-Ray player that came with the system that wasn't even 3 years old yet. Win-7 Pro wanted nothing to do with that drive. I can't even use it as a simple CDROM drive. The only solution is to go BUY more hardware. So a new device supported on Vista 64-bit has all of a sudden lost the device support one OS later? I suppose hardware sales and software sales go hand in hand. Microsoft is going to win over the consumers, hands down. Amazing how the millionaires are made doing business like that! Not hard to see at all. Now, it appears that Microsoft is going into the hardware business. Notice that consumer products are coming out branded by Microsoft! If they can't develop and support a reliable operating system, imagine what kind of support you'll get on these "package deals". Once the warranty is up, throw it away and BUY something new. This is really a sad way of doing business. I suppose that if the consumers didn't keep forking out more money supporting Microsoft, they wouldn't last too long.  Apple is getting more and more attractive........

In all honesty I don't know what else to tell you.It surtenly sounds like you have covered all your bases.

All I can tell you is that I am running Windows 7 Premiume.I'm not all that PC friendly but I was runing only 2 mgs of ram on a 500 g hd.As far as the rest of the guts in that thing I havent the fogiest idea of what was what or did what..

I found that tip some where on line so I went out and purchased the USB V 2 port,came home and installed it and I hadn't had a single interuption since.

Sorry I can't help any further so good luck with yours

L.