Easy & Safe: Fix the Intel Smart Sound Technology Drive Problems

You can learn what is Intel Smart Sound Technology drive and the reasons of Intel Smart Sound Technology drive problem as well as how to easily fix it. You can also know how to protect the system.

By @Clytze Last Updated November 22, 2022

What is Intel Smart Sound Technology Drive?

Intel Smart Sound Technology (Intel SST) is an integrated audio digital signal processor (DSP) for processing audio, sound, speech, and voice interaction. It enables the latest Intel Core and Intel Atom processor-based computers to respond quickly to your voice commands and deliver high-fidelity audio without affecting the operating system.

It enables the latest Intel Core and Intel Atom processor-based computers to respond quickly to your voice commands and deliver high-fidelity audio without compromising operating system performance and battery life.

Reasons for the Intel Smart Sound Technology Drive Problems

You may encounter the driver issue with the Intel Smart Sound Technology (ISST) OED with the Intel Smart Sound Technology (ISST) audio controller. It may be caused by the following reasons.

  • Outdated drivers.
  • The Smart Sound Technology driver is corrupted.
  • Incorrect Smart Sound Technology driver.
  • Driver dependencies are missing from your operating system.
  • Incompatible dedicated driver.

How to Fix the Intel Smart Sound Technology Driver Problems

Once you understand the reasons, you can continue reading this article to learn how to fix this problem easily. The problem with the drive you can either update the driver or replace the sound driver with high definition audio controller. Each method contains specific steps to follow. You can also learn how to better protect your system.

Update the Driver

The first method is to try to fix the Intel Smart Sound Technology drive not working by performing an Intel Smart Sound Technology driver update. You can follow the tutorial below to get started.

Step 1. Launch Windows Device Manager. Then Unfold Audio inputs and outputs.

Step 2. Find your microphone device, right-click on it and select Update driver.

Step 3. Follow the onscreen instruction to complete the task.

You may also need to update your Speakers driver and the drivers under the Sound, video, and game controllers section.

Replace the Sound Drivers with High Definition Audio Controller

In addition to the method of updating the driver, you can also try replacing the sound driver with a high definition audio controller when you encounter an Intel Smart Sound Technology problem. Here's exactly how to perform this.

Step 1. Press the Windows + R together to open the Run window. Type in devmgmt.msc and press the OK button to the Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand the Sound, video, and game controllers section by clicking on the arrow icon in front of it. Right-click on the Intel(R) Smart Sound Technology (Intel(r) SST) OED sound device and choose Update Driver.

Step 3. In the dialog window, choose to Browse my computer for driver software, and then click on the Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer button.

Step 4. Find and select High Definition Audio Device. If you can't see it in the list, uncheck the Show compatible hardware option. Click Next to continue.

Step 5. Follow the on-screen instructions until the installation is complete, and then restart your computer.

Backup System to Prevent Possible Blue and Black Screen Problems

Intel Smart Sound Technology driver problems can be solved by the methods mentioned above, but if it expired may cause problems such as blue or black screen. To avoid data loss from these problems, you can use the free backup software AOMEI Backupper Standard to backup your system regularly. This way, even if there is a problem, you can quickly restore it with the system backup.

  • Scheduled backup: You can set different backup frequencies to backup your Windows system including Daily/Weekly/Monthly.
  • Different backup paths: It supports backing up the system to different backup destination paths, such as HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, NAS, cloud disk and network location, etc.
  • Incremental backup: When you perform the scheduled backup, the freeware will run the backup task with the incremental backup to improve backup efficiency and save disk space.

Download and install this freeware first then follow the graphic tutorial below. If you are a Windows Server user, you can pick AOMEI Backupper Server.

Download FreewareWin 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
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Step 1. Open the software and click Backup > System Backup.

Step 2. It will select system partition and boot-related partitions automatically. And you just need to select a destination.

Step 3. Click Start Backup to backup the Windows 10 system.

Notes:

  • Options: You can write comments for the system backup or select the compression level or set email notifications according to your own needs.
  • Schedule Backup: It offers 5 different backup frequencies to backup system including Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event trigger and USB plug in. The last two are available in the Pro version.
  • Backup Scheme: You can select different backup methods. And you can upgrade to the Pro version to enjoy the differential backup method which can easily restore your scheduled backup. After the upgrade, you can also enable automatic backup cleanup feature to save disk space. 

Summary

This article describes what the Intel Smart Sound Technology drive is, what causes the problem and how to fix it. For better system security as well as to prevent blue or black screen errors caused by expired drives. You can backup your system regularly with the free backup software AOMEI Backupper Standard. This way, even if there is any problem, you can use the system backup to perform a quick restore without losing any data.

Besides that, it is an excellent restore software, besides being able to restore files, disks, partitions backups and system backups easily. If you need to restore your system backup to a computer with different hardware, its Universal Restore feature can also easily achieve the goal.