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no sound from XP
Posted: 2 Sep 2008 11:26 am
by jim milewski
my buddy was given a computer from the school he works at and has XP bare bones nothing else on the drive, however it says no sound device. There is a speaker jack in the back so I assume the sound card is on the mother board. On control panel, sounds, audio the selections are non highlighted and cannot be clicked on. Device manager says this device is working properly, I think this is probably a basic fix or enablement somewhere but I don't know where...thanks
Posted: 2 Sep 2008 11:32 am
by Wiz Feinberg
Try identifying the sound device and download the latest drivers for XP, then install them.
In Control Panel, under the sound devices, make sure that the correct device is listed for playback and recording, and Use Preferred Devices is checked. Also, make sure the volume control is displayed in the Systray, and nothing is muted, or all the wall down to zero volume.
Finally, make sure you are plugging your speakers into the (usually lime green) speaker output jack, and the speakers are turned on.
Posted: 2 Sep 2008 12:00 pm
by Jack Stoner
If there is nothing in the Control Panel, and although the Device Manager says the device is working correctly, it probably needs drivers installed.
Since the Device Manager has identified it (although could be wrong) see what the Device Manager says it is and then look for Drivers for that.
Depending on the brand, some vendors use Proprietary drivers (e.g. Dell) and you must use the vendor's drivers in that case, not standard Retail drivers. If it's a Dell, post what the model is and I should be able to find the Dell downloads.
On motherboards that use an Intel chipset, when a new install is done you must install the Intel chipset drivers before installing device drivers such as the sound. On these types the correct install sequence is (1) Install Operating System (2) Install Chipset Drivers (3) Install device drivers such as the sound. On motherboards with an AMD CPU there are usually some type of chipset drivers too.
Since it has the OS and it's apparently working, download the free Belarc Advisor and run that and it might help in identifying the hardware.
www.belarc.com