Sound Problems

[Gecko]

Az Flux,

Well that is normal for those devices to be "location unknown".

I'm running out of new ideas on what it could be.
You have most likely done all of these already but just to make sure.

Verify that your sound device is turned on:

Open Device Manager.
Double-click Sound, video and game controllers, right-click your sound device, and then click Properties.

Under Device usage, make sure that Use this device (enable) is selected.
Click OK.
Restart your computer if you are prompted to do so.

Verify that your sound device is the default device:

Open Sounds and Audio Devices Properties in Control Panel.
On the Audio tab, click your sound device in the Default device lists under both Sound Playback and Sound Recording.

Verify that Windows is configured to use the audio features of your sound device:

Open Device Manager.
Double-click Sound, video, and game controllers.
Double-click your sound device.
Click the Properties tab, and then double-click Audio Devices.
Click your sound device, and then click Properties.
Click Use audio features on this device.
Click OK until you return to Device Manager.
Restart your computer.

[Az Flux]

Yeah, I checked all those. But I have now, finally traced the problem.

I got some advice off someone else saying it's probably some program or something, stopping the driver from working after login. Because the sound would work perfectly before the login, but then stop right after it.

I used MSConfig's "diagnostic mode" to test that theory and while it didn't exactly work, I investigated it more and found a few things. When I first started up the computer and logged in, it would play the logon sound, but if I later logged out and back in, it wouldn't. So, I took this further by getting command prompt up at the login screen, and using it to start an .mp3 ... it worked perfectly. That was enough proof to say something was indeed stopping it after login.

With a few possibilities of what it could be, I nuked my harddrive so I knew I would be starting with a fresh slate, and reinstalled windows. After that I installed only the KB888111 update, the chipset driver and the audio driver, then tested. I found that straight after I installed the audio driver, I could get sound, but if I logged off or shutdown it wouldn't work when I came back. If I uninstalled and reinstalled it, it would work perfectly ... but then stop after a login. I could take it even further by disabling the driver before logging out, then re-enabling it after coming back - it'd work just fine.

So, for some unknown reason the driver is stopping itself from working after login *kicks Sony* that and the camera driver, so much for quality assurance and product testing.

[Az Flux]

Well, it wasn't as good as I hoped.

All those ways to get back sound ... and I can also just disable and enable it after login which works too ... but all those ways don't fix it completely. It only lets me play one sound before it stops working again (which would be why it stopped after login). I also can't play sounds on the internet, like YouTube.

[Gecko]

Az Flux,

Chances are that Sony dealt with these problems at the OEM level of the OS.
You would have to find the original recovery disk or order one from Sony.

I remember coming across a Dell once, that had a stutterfix.dll file that was used fixed a stuttering problem with windows audio.
If I renamed the file the audio would stutter, name it back and all was well.

[Az Flux]

That would be good, if Sony actually provided me with recovery disks. But they took the cheap way and made a recovery partition on my hard drive. Of course, I didn't find out about that until after I had reformatted and that partition was long gone.

I suppose I'll have to contact them then, I knew I'd have to eventually.

[Az Flux]

Well, I got the sound problem fixed. The cam one is still there, but that doesn't matter because I hardly used it, and it's not much effort to enable it when I do.

I contacted Sony and they directed me to the kb835221 hotfix for Windows - the older version of kb888111, which is what I had installed. Turns out the older one is what I needed, and after uninstalling kb888111 and the audio driver (and the modem because it's somehow connected to those hotfixes), I installed kb835221 and the driver again, and now have lovely, fully functional sound.

Cheers on your help.

[Gecko]