PCTech Forums

hi...im new here...

anyway, recently XP decided that it didnt like having sound anymore so it 'lost' it....i put up with it for a Bit but then got annoyed so im trying to fix it....i tried latest drivers for VIA AC'97 but they didnt help and now on device manager it says that 'the driver is installed but has not been started' so i thought maybe the MOBO sound was screwed so i got a soundblaster card but this caused the same error with newest drivers.....does anyone have any ideas about what is going on???

thanks,

benji

It sounds like you have a conflict with the onboard sound and the sound blaster card.

In order to be able to use the sound blaster card you will have to uninstall the
onboard sound from the device manager.
I would also uninstall the sound blaster, just to make sure you get a clean install of the drivers.

Now you will have to disable the onboard sound in the BIOS.
Reboot and press the F8 key after device detection and before windows starts to load.
This will get you into the BIOS you will most likely need to go into the Advanced Chipset section.
Look for the VIA AC'97 onboard sound and disable it, press F10 to save and reboot.
Now when windows finds your new sound card, install the correct drivers for the sound blaster card.

thanks gecko but i doubt thats the problem, the sound disappeared before i got the BB card...i got it to check if it was a problem with the onboard sound....

right...ive just done what you suggested gecko but it still doesn't work...apparently the 'Driver is enabled but has not been started' but how am i supposed to start it

hmm... If I were you I would check in the system tray, located on the lower right and corner of the screen, and right click the speaker icon and click "open volume control" and make sure nothing is set on mute and everything looks ok. I had a similar problem and I didn't have sound for weeks, I finally checked in their and it turned out something was set at mute

here is a link that has a solution to your problem.



Its a very long thread, but reading through it will answer many things more completly

thanks icecube...that was a useful link...i checked for the swenum files but i dont have them, nor do I have a Win ME disc? could anyone tell me anywhere i could get them from? also, would having a free PCI slot cause some confusion to my pc?