[emptystring]

Two people in my office have the same problem, and I've been going nuts trying to fix it...

basically, they both have just installed windows XP, one from a complete install and the other might have used a ghost image or system restore.

they both cannot get any sound to output - all the speakers are plugged into the right places with volume up. they both have some intel mobo and are using on-board graphics/LAN/sound/etc. the graphics and LAN work fine, but sound is messed up.

in device manager, though, they both have an extra entry, titled "Other Devices", with "multimedia controller" under that heading and the yellow exclamation mark. they both also have the "Sound Video and Game Controller" heading with all the right stuff under (Legacy drivers, etc), and no exclamation marks are found.

at first i just tried to reinstall the Soundmax/RealTek AC97 drivers, but both installs failed at the end - RealTek gave me something about a Bus error, and another gave me a "Driver cannot be found" error.

i have looked on the web for quite a few solutions - most of them say that i need to reboot into safe mode, delete the MMC from device manager, AND delete the original sound/video/game controller from it, then reboot and either let windows or the mobo cd to install the soundcard drivers.

has anyone encountered something like this?

- bernard

[discobay]

If the mainboard has sound then you might be advised to disable it from within the BIOS so that you can use the sound card that you have plugged in.

[TaLL|dUdE]

what you've read is exactly what you should do. try it out and see how it goes.

[Max]

Originally Posted by emptystring

Two people in my office have the same problem, and I've been going nuts trying to fix it...

basically, they both have just installed windows XP, one from a complete install and the other might have used a ghost image or system restore.

they both cannot get any sound to output - all the speakers are plugged into the right places with volume up. they both have some intel mobo and are using on-board graphics/LAN/sound/etc. the graphics and LAN work fine, but sound is messed up.

in device manager, though, they both have an extra entry, titled "Other Devices", with "multimedia controller" under that heading and the yellow exclamation mark. they both also have the "Sound Video and Game Controller" heading with all the right stuff under (Legacy drivers, etc), and no exclamation marks are found.

at first i just tried to reinstall the Soundmax/RealTek AC97 drivers, but both installs failed at the end - RealTek gave me something about a Bus error, and another gave me a "Driver cannot be found" error.

i have looked on the web for quite a few solutions - most of them say that i need to reboot into safe mode, delete the MMC from device manager, AND delete the original sound/video/game controller from it, then reboot and either let windows or the mobo cd to install the soundcard drivers.

has anyone encountered something like this?

- bernard

You'd like to give up using your onboard audio in favor of a sound card?
If yes, then try doing what disco suggested. Otherwise, check your mobo to see if the sound switch wiring is properly set up, and then follow the steps that you were suggested to do online and see how it goes.