I don't know who is interested in the topic of what is announced during web page navigation but I'm going to start a topic on what is helpful and useful and what is just clutter on the chat list so those interested may want to join.  The chat list is a low traffic list.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Joseph Lee
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2020 10:21 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Unnecessary verbiage that wastes my time

Hi,
It's a combination of user expectations, what document writers wrote, and specifications. In case of "figure/out of figure", it's more towards ARIA specs, how web authors wrote their sites 9including which framework is in use), and how NVDA got such an information.
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2020 8:19 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Unnecessary verbiage that wastes my time

I should clarify, based on what Brian said, that I don't object to the text being read in this instance or in general.  I object to figure and out of figure being announced . Just as I object to announcement of bloc quotes being on.  Its not the text being read I object to but people in general don't benefit from hearing such information.  It seems to me that the designers should consider what is useful infrmation in terms of navigating and in terms of what people generally use when determining what should be announced by default.  I don't know how they determine what is announced.

Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Felix G.
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2020 9:46 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Unnecessary verbiage that wastes my time

Hi!
I've been reading along and I know this feeling. I often refer to it as the user experience that nobody designed. On the one hand there's a screen reader developer, on the other there's an app developer or web designer. They don't know each other, and yet their decisions converge on our experience of their products. In the sighted world nobody would get away with it, but we get translations of translations, almost never what someone consciously designed.
Best,
Felix


Am Do., 6. Aug. 2020 um 17:58 Uhr schrieb Brian Vogel
<britechguy@gmail.com>:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a
human reader to say something about the fact that there is a
figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading,
unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only
read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling
many, many times with multiple screen readers.  I hope that someday
there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your
average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content.
Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links
and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea,
really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it
offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the
presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks"
of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the
option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going
through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you
explicitly don't want while retaining the others.  And do I ever know
what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through,
but in any really complex system where a high level of customization
is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

I'm not sure if I have the technical knowledge to present this to The Times. Do you object if I forward part of your remarks that describe the problem?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Greg Williams
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2020 2:02 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

It is an issue with the HTML. For whatever reason, they coded the links
under the opinion section differently than the rest of the links. They
used accessibility badly which made it worse than if they had done
nothing. In the opinion section, the put an aria-label on the <a> tag
for the link; this tells assistive technology to ignore any other text
in the link. The h2 tag is wrapped inside the <a> tag which means that
it also gets ignored by the assitive technology.

I imagine that the reason the old version of NVDA detected the headings
is that it is old enough that it did not handle aria-labels and so just
ignored them and picked up the nested content including the h2. I will
stop here and refrain from giving my opinion on the coding practices in
the webpage.

Greg


On 8/6/2020 9:46 PM, Gene wrote:

I haven't asked The Times. I thought it was a problem with NVDA since mhy old version recognizes them as headings. I haven't used JAWS to any extent for years but it might be useful for someone using a current JAWS to see if these links are seen as headings.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:42 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

When I use a very old version of NVDA, they are reported as headings when I
move from heading to heading with report headings turned on. I don't know
what the last version was that this occurs. I can also move to the articles
when using filter by headings in the elements list of the old version.

I don't know how old a version of NVDA needs to be used. I use Windows 7
and I still use 13.x much of the time because it does almost everything I
want. I play around with new versions at times.

All other articles on the page are reported as headings in the new NVDA. So
why aren't these and how often, on other pages, may material be being
missed?

Evidently, there is something different about these headings but what?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Quentin Christensen
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:27 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug


Hi Gene,

It looks like those articles aren't marked up as headings. If you go to the
Opinion heading, you can then press TAB or K to go to the links for the
pieces, but they aren't reported as headings. Looking in the elements list,
I can find them in the links but not headings.

Pages like the New York Times are quite complex and it's likely something
has been missed somewhere along the line. What did the NYT people have to
say?

Quentin.


On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 8:24 AM Gene <gsasner@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm using the latest beta, I haven't switched to the production version.

This appears to be a bug and it may result in information being missed. On
The New York Times home page, using Firefox or Brave, I haven't yet tested
with Chrome, but Brave is Chrome-based, when you get to the opinion part of
the page, the articles in that section aren't seen as headings. All other
articles are seen as headings and using a very old NVDA, the articles in the
opinion section are seen as headings. This is using Windows 7.

I just tested with NVDA 2019.2.21 and the same thing happens so this likely
bug has been around for some time.

I also just tested with Chrome and the same thing occurs. All articles in
the opinion section are skipped and the screen-reader moves directly to the
editor's picks heading. It needs to be determined what is causing this
problem and that may help determine its seriousness.

Gene

I'm not sure if I have the technical knowledge to present this to The Times. Do you object if I forward part of your remarks that describe the problem?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Greg Williams
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2020 2:02 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

It is an issue with the HTML. For whatever reason, they coded the links
under the opinion section differently than the rest of the links. They
used accessibility badly which made it worse than if they had done
nothing. In the opinion section, the put an aria-label on the <a> tag
for the link; this tells assistive technology to  ignore any other text
in the link. The h2 tag is wrapped inside the <a> tag which means that
it also gets ignored by the assitive technology.

I imagine that the reason the old version of NVDA detected the headings
is that it is old enough that it did not handle aria-labels and so just
ignored them and picked up the nested content including the h2. I will
stop here and refrain from giving my opinion on the coding practices in
the webpage.

Greg


On 8/6/2020 9:46 PM, Gene wrote:

I haven't asked The Times.  I thought it was a problem with NVDA since mhy old version recognizes them as headings.  I haven't used JAWS to any extent for years but it might be useful for someone using a current JAWS to see if these links are seen as headings.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:42 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

When I use a very old version of NVDA, they are reported as headings when I
move from heading to heading with report headings turned on.  I don't know
what the last version was that this occurs.  I can also move to the articles
when using filter by headings in the elements list of the old version.

I don't know how old a version of NVDA needs to be used.  I use Windows 7
and I still use 13.x much of the time because it does almost everything I
want.  I play around with new versions at times.

All other articles on the page are reported as headings in the new NVDA. So
why aren't these and how often, on other pages, may material be being
missed?

Evidently, there is something different about these headings but what?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Quentin Christensen
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:27 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug


Hi Gene,

It looks like those articles aren't marked up as headings.  If you go to the
Opinion heading, you can then press TAB or K to go to the links for the
pieces, but they aren't reported as headings.  Looking in the elements list,
I can find them in the links but not headings.

Pages like the New York Times are quite complex and it's likely something
has been missed somewhere along the line.  What did the NYT people have to
say?

Quentin.


On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 8:24 AM Gene <gsasner@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm using the latest beta, I haven't switched to the production version.

This appears to be a bug and it may result in information being missed. On
The New York Times home page, using Firefox or Brave, I haven't yet tested
with Chrome, but Brave is Chrome-based, when you get to the opinion part of
the page, the articles in that section aren't seen as headings. All other
articles are seen as headings and using a very old NVDA, the articles in the
opinion section are seen as headings.  This is using Windows 7.

I just tested with NVDA 2019.2.21 and the same thing happens so this likely
bug has been around for some time.

I also just tested with Chrome and the same thing occurs.  All articles in
the opinion section are skipped and the screen-reader moves directly to the
editor's picks heading.  It needs to be determined what is causing this
problem and that may help determine its seriousness.

Gene

I haven't asked The Times. I thought it was a problem with NVDA since mhy old version recognizes them as headings. I haven't used JAWS to any extent for years but it might be useful for someone using a current JAWS to see if these links are seen as headings.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:42 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

When I use a very old version of NVDA, they are reported as headings when I
move from heading to heading with report headings turned on. I don't know
what the last version was that this occurs. I can also move to the articles
when using filter by headings in the elements list of the old version.

I don't know how old a version of NVDA needs to be used. I use Windows 7
and I still use 13.x much of the time because it does almost everything I
want. I play around with new versions at times.

All other articles on the page are reported as headings in the new NVDA. So
why aren't these and how often, on other pages, may material be being
missed?

Evidently, there is something different about these headings but what?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Quentin Christensen
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:27 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug


Hi Gene,

It looks like those articles aren't marked up as headings. If you go to the
Opinion heading, you can then press TAB or K to go to the links for the
pieces, but they aren't reported as headings. Looking in the elements list,
I can find them in the links but not headings.

Pages like the New York Times are quite complex and it's likely something
has been missed somewhere along the line. What did the NYT people have to
say?

Quentin.


On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 8:24 AM Gene <gsasner@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm using the latest beta, I haven't switched to the production version.

This appears to be a bug and it may result in information being missed. On
The New York Times home page, using Firefox or Brave, I haven't yet tested
with Chrome, but Brave is Chrome-based, when you get to the opinion part of
the page, the articles in that section aren't seen as headings. All other
articles are seen as headings and using a very old NVDA, the articles in the
opinion section are seen as headings. This is using Windows 7.

I just tested with NVDA 2019.2.21 and the same thing happens so this likely
bug has been around for some time.

I also just tested with Chrome and the same thing occurs. All articles in
the opinion section are skipped and the screen-reader moves directly to the
editor's picks heading. It needs to be determined what is causing this
problem and that may help determine its seriousness.

Gene

I haven't asked The Times.  I thought it was a problem with NVDA since mhy old version recognizes them as headings.  I haven't used JAWS to any extent for years but it might be useful for someone using a current JAWS to see if these links are seen as headings.

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:42 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug

When I use a very old version of NVDA, they are reported as headings when I
move from heading to heading with report headings turned on.  I don't know
what the last version was that this occurs.  I can also move to the articles
when using filter by headings in the elements list of the old version.

I don't know how old a version of NVDA needs to be used.  I use Windows 7
and I still use 13.x much of the time because it does almost everything I
want.  I play around with new versions at times.

All other articles on the page are reported as headings in the new NVDA.  So
why aren't these and how often, on other pages, may material be being
missed?

Evidently, there is something different about these headings but what?

Gene
-----Original Message----- From: Quentin Christensen
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 8:27 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] A possible bug


Hi Gene,

It looks like those articles aren't marked up as headings.  If you go to the
Opinion heading, you can then press TAB or K to go to the links for the
pieces, but they aren't reported as headings.  Looking in the elements list,
I can find them in the links but not headings.

Pages like the New York Times are quite complex and it's likely something
has been missed somewhere along the line.  What did the NYT people have to
say?

Quentin.


On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 8:24 AM Gene <gsasner@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm using the latest beta, I haven't switched to the production version.

This appears to be a bug and it may result in information being missed.  On
The New York Times home page, using Firefox or Brave, I haven't yet tested
with Chrome, but Brave is Chrome-based, when you get to the opinion part of
the page, the articles in that section aren't seen as headings. All other
articles are seen as headings and using a very old NVDA, the articles in the
opinion section are seen as headings.  This is using Windows 7.

I just tested with NVDA 2019.2.21 and the same thing happens so this likely
bug has been around for some time.

I also just tested with Chrome and the same thing occurs.  All articles in
the opinion section are skipped and the screen-reader moves directly to the
editor's picks heading.  It needs to be determined what is causing this
problem and that may help determine its seriousness.

Gene

Hi!
I've been reading along and I know this feeling. I often refer to it
as the user experience that nobody designed. On the one hand there's a
screen reader developer, on the other there's an app developer or web
designer. They don't know each other, and yet their decisions converge
on our experience of their products. In the sighted world nobody would
get away with it, but we get translations of translations, almost
never what someone consciously designed.
Best,
Felix


Am Do., 6. Aug. 2020 um 17:58 Uhr schrieb Brian Vogel <britechguy@...>:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a human reader to say something about the fact that there is a figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading, unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling many, many times with multiple screen readers.  I hope that someday there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content.  Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea, really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks" of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you explicitly don't want while retaining the others.  And do I ever know what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through, but in any really complex system where a high level of customization is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a
human reader to say something about the fact that there is a
figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading,
unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only
read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling
many, many times with multiple screen readers. I hope that someday
there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your
average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content.
Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links
and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea,
really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it
offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the
presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks"
of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the
option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going
through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you
explicitly don't want while retaining the others. And do I ever know
what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through,
but in any really complex system where a high level of customization
is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

~ Oscar Wilde

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a
human reader to say something about the fact that there is a
figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading,
unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only
read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling
many, many times with multiple screen readers. I hope that someday
there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your
average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content.
Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links
and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea,
really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it
offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the
presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks"
of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the
option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going
through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you
explicitly don't want while retaining the others. And do I ever know
what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through,
but in any really complex system where a high level of customization
is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

~ Oscar Wilde

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a human reader to say something about the fact that there is a figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading, unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling many, many times with multiple screen readers. I hope that someday there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content. Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea, really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks" of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you explicitly don't want while retaining the others. And do I ever know what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through, but in any really complex system where a high level of customization is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

~ Oscar Wilde

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a human reader to say something about the fact that there is a figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading, unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling many, many times with multiple screen readers. I hope that someday there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content. Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea, really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks" of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you explicitly don't want while retaining the others. And do I ever know what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through, but in any really complex system where a high level of customization is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.

--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

~ Oscar Wilde

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 06:35 PM, Joseph Lee wrote:

You can’t use keyboard commands to look at various system information displayed on that screen – you must use object navigation to read them.

-
Thank you for this specific example.   Again, this is very handy for me to have as I now have a specific location where playing with object navigation gets me a result I cannot get otherwise, and I've been told what that result would be.  I just went through the list of items near the top of the About pane and got "status green" for each after it was read, and had no idea of exactly how I was supposed to (or even if I could) get to that information via NVDA.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

I told you, the interface is inaccessible. I cannot press any buttons to do anything with. I was lucky to get the information I did.

On 7/08/2020 1:56 pm, Shaun Everiss wrote:

Well you could always check and open live update and make sure nothing is in the cue.

On 7/08/2020 11:12 am, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

I already have Asus Live Update installed. It runs in the background, right? It should have been doing its thing during the whole year I've had this computer, right?

On 7/08/2020 9:05 am, Brian Vogel wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 06:43 PM, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

X507UAR

-
Support Page:  https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-Laptop-X507UA/HelpDesk_download/

When I select the what's noted above in the CPU/BIOS dropdown, along with Windows 10 for the OS, there are a number of very recent updates, particularly recent is the BIOS/UEFI update from June of this year.  The most recent Audio driver is noted as being from August 2019.

There is also a download link for a utility called ICESound (that comes in a ZIP file) from February 2020 that is described: It is intelligent audio enhancement software that improves the audio quality in sound experiences on laptops.

Most importantly, Asus has a system updater utility, Asus Live Update, that checks for all the device driver and other updates that are applicable to your computer, and when these are provided by the computer's manufacturer I strongly recommend that they be used.  They make keeping all the essentials for your computer current much more easily than anything else will.  I'd download and install that and let it do its thing as soon as is reasonably possible.  I suspect you'll have a bunch of things identified as needing updates.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

 

Well you could always check and open live update and make sure nothing is in the cue.

On 7/08/2020 11:12 am, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

I already have Asus Live Update installed. It runs in the background, right? It should have been doing its thing during the whole year I've had this computer, right?

On 7/08/2020 9:05 am, Brian Vogel wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 06:43 PM, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

X507UAR

-
Support Page:  https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-Laptop-X507UA/HelpDesk_download/

When I select the what's noted above in the CPU/BIOS dropdown, along with Windows 10 for the OS, there are a number of very recent updates, particularly recent is the BIOS/UEFI update from June of this year.  The most recent Audio driver is noted as being from August 2019.

There is also a download link for a utility called ICESound (that comes in a ZIP file) from February 2020 that is described: It is intelligent audio enhancement software that improves the audio quality in sound experiences on laptops.

Most importantly, Asus has a system updater utility, Asus Live Update, that checks for all the device driver and other updates that are applicable to your computer, and when these are provided by the computer's manufacturer I strongly recommend that they be used.  They make keeping all the essentials for your computer current much more easily than anything else will.  I'd download and install that and let it do its thing as soon as is reasonably possible.  I suspect you'll have a bunch of things identified as needing updates.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

 

System Model: VivoBook 15_ASUS Laptop X507UAR

I scrolled through the pages but couldn't find my sound driver listed, and it said there were no problems found.

On 7/08/2020 7:49 am, Brian Vogel wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 05:38 PM, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

The make is Asus and I don't know off the top of my head what the model is.

-
Unfortunately, then, I'm stuck.  There are, literally, thousands of Asus computer models, and without the specific model it's impossible to determine what the most recent drivers Asus has for a given computer are.

The only way I know of that you might be able to get the model number, as what's provided varies by maker, is using the DXDIAG command.  Hit Winkey+R, enter DXDIAG in the open edit box, then hit Enter.  You'll get a message about needing to connect to the internet to check certain things which it's fine to OK, then after about 15-30 seconds a window will pop up with the title DirectX Diagnostic Tool and it is open to its System tab.  In that tab, what's shown to the right of the label System model is the model.  There is also an Sound tab where the driver information for your sound device (usually output device, e.g., speakers/headphones) is shown.  What's important is the Date shown for the sound driver since you'd be checking on your computer's Drivers & Software page to see if the driver they offer is newer than what you have (also make a note of the version number, too, as there are times when an updated package is released, but the driver in it is the same version as an earlier package).

 
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

 

System Model: VivoBook 15_ASUS Laptop X507UAR

I scrolled through the pages but couldn't find my sound driver listed, and it said there were no problems found.

On 7/08/2020 7:49 am, Brian Vogel wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 05:38 PM, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

The make is Asus and I don't know off the top of my head what the model is.

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Unfortunately, then, I'm stuck.  There are, literally, thousands of Asus computer models, and without the specific model it's impossible to determine what the most recent drivers Asus has for a given computer are.

The only way I know of that you might be able to get the model number, as what's provided varies by maker, is using the DXDIAG command.  Hit Winkey+R, enter DXDIAG in the open edit box, then hit Enter.  You'll get a message about needing to connect to the internet to check certain things which it's fine to OK, then after about 15-30 seconds a window will pop up with the title DirectX Diagnostic Tool and it is open to its System tab.  In that tab, what's shown to the right of the label System model is the model.  There is also an Sound tab where the driver information for your sound device (usually output device, e.g., speakers/headphones) is shown.  What's important is the Date shown for the sound driver since you'd be checking on your computer's Drivers & Software page to see if the driver they offer is newer than what you have (also make a note of the version number, too, as there are times when an updated package is released, but the driver in it is the same version as an earlier package).

 
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde

 

I already have Asus Live Update installed. It runs in the background, right? It should have been doing its thing during the whole year I've had this computer, right?

On 7/08/2020 9:05 am, Brian Vogel wrote:

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 06:43 PM, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

X507UAR

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Support Page:  https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-Laptop-X507UA/HelpDesk_download/

When I select the what's noted above in the CPU/BIOS dropdown, along with Windows 10 for the OS, there are a number of very recent updates, particularly recent is the BIOS/UEFI update from June of this year.  The most recent Audio driver is noted as being from August 2019.

There is also a download link for a utility called ICESound (that comes in a ZIP file) from February 2020 that is described: It is intelligent audio enhancement software that improves the audio quality in sound experiences on laptops.

Most importantly, Asus has a system updater utility, Asus Live Update, that checks for all the device driver and other updates that are applicable to your computer, and when these are provided by the computer's manufacturer I strongly recommend that they be used.  They make keeping all the essentials for your computer current much more easily than anything else will.  I'd download and install that and let it do its thing as soon as is reasonably possible.  I suspect you'll have a bunch of things identified as needing updates.
 
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde