At wit's end - "No Audio Device"

[Paul]

I have a Compaq Presario 5005SR. I run Windows XP Professional. It
had SP2 on it. I used to have sound. Everything was working (for the
most part).

I recently rebuilt my PC. Afterwards the sound worked
well...UNTIL...I installed SP2 on it. Now...
1. I have no sound.
2. The Sounds and Audio Devices Properties tabs are disabled.
3. The volume tab says "No Audio Device".

I've contacted a Compaq rep and installed the latest drivers. The
device says it's working fine. I've checked the BIOS and it seems to
be correct. I've checks the services and the "Windows Audio" is
started and runs automatically.

I've searched, read many web sites, and tried many different things to
resolve this. But nothing has worked. I even purchased a new sound
card and installed it. That did not work either, I have the same
error.

Can anyone help?

 

[darkrats]

Try this:

1. Start/Run and type - services.msc
2. Turn off Windows Audio and then restart it.
3. Apply this patch - KB921883
4. Reboot your computer and see if the problem goes away.

You can get the patch here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-040.mspx

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the try darkrats. But that did not help. Still the same
error.

Got anything else?

 

[darkrats]

I can't think of any reason why SP2 would disable your sound, but I would
start by pulling the sound card you purchased separately and go back to the
onboard audio. If you don't get anything, then reinstalled the onboard audio
drivers and see if that works.

 

[Paul]

I've reinstalled the drivers multiple times. I've even tried
uninstalling them first and then installing. I've tried different
version numbers. I'm stumped on this one. Everything says it's
working fine except for the "No Audio Device".

 

[darkrats]

How about going into Device Manager and actually removing the entry for your
audio? When you reboot, your computer should see a device there, but it will
be an unknown device, probably with a yellow exclamation mark. Then try
installing the drivers for it. Once again, I would try this first with the
sound card removed. Have the drivers for your onboard sound handy. If it
does work, then you can plug in your card and try installing those drivers
too. You should end up with two choice for audio, under Properties, unless
your onboard audio chip is disabled automatically when you add a real card.
Can't say this will work, but, what the heck, you got no sound anyway!

 

[Paul]

How about going into Device Manager and actually removing the entry for your

audio?

I believe I've done that. But maybe explain what you mean by
"actually removing the entry". I have uninstalled the driver for my
in-board Sound card. I then installed it, but get the same thing.

Do you know anything about the Audio Codecs? What is it? There is an
option to remove the properties of the Audio Codecs. But I don't
think want to do that.

 

[Paul]

OK, I tried it again. I uninstalled the ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
driver and the "MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device". After uninstalling
them they were gone from the "Sound, video and game controllers"
Devices. After rebooting, the new hardware device dialog box did NOT
appear. And the drivers were back under the "Sound, video and game
controllers" Devices. It's almost as if they did not actually
uninstall.

I am the computer administrator for this PC.

Any other ideas?

 

[darkrats]

You just have to love computers!

Can you post, again, the make/model of your computer?
And the make/model of the audio/sound card you purchased separately?

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

Computer: Compaq Presario 5005SR
CPU: Intel Pentium III

The sound card I purchased isn't really a factor since I no longer
have it in the computer. But it is a Dynex DX-SC51. Another reason
it's not a factor is that I had this problem prior to ever purchasing
it. I rebuilt the PC, the sound didn't work. I rebuilt it a second
time and it still didn't work.

Also, I know that the sound worked prior to rebuilding my PC.

 

[David]

Computer: Compaq Presario 5005SR
CPU: Intel Pentium III

The sound card I purchased isn't really a factor since I no longer
have it in the computer. But it is a Dynex DX-SC51. Another reason
it's not a factor is that I had this problem prior to ever purchasing
it. I rebuilt the PC, the sound didn't work. I rebuilt it a second
time and it still didn't work.

Also, I know that the sound worked prior to rebuilding my PC.

Does the device show up in Control panel/sounds and audio devices/audio tab?
If it is not there, there may be a fix on Kelly's web site. Despite what
device manager indicates, if it not listed in the control panel, Windows
does not know it is present.

David

 

[over]

OK, I tried it again. I uninstalled the ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
driver and the "MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device". After uninstalling
them they were gone from the "Sound, video and game controllers"
Devices. After rebooting, the new hardware device dialog box did NOT
appear. And the drivers were back under the "Sound, video and game
controllers" Devices. It's almost as if they did not actually
uninstall.

I am the computer administrator for this PC.

Any other ideas?

I had a similar problem once - the sound card was installed and showed up
in device manager, but not in control panel.
It turned out to be a missing plug and play software enumerator...
I don't rembember how I found this fix, but below is what I wrote down at
the time:

FIRST: check in device manager - look under system devices and see if
"plug and play software enumerator" is there - if it is, don't do this
fix.

copy machine.inf from %windir%\inf to a temp dir
remove the line below in the [ControlFlags] section (about line# 20):
ExcludeFromSelect=*

Control Panel - Add Hardware (after the search, select "Yes have
connected hardware")
-at the bottom of the list select "Add a new hardware device"
-choose the manual select option
-find and select "System devices" in the list
-click "Have Disk" button
-select the temp dir, then the modified machine.inf
-Under (Standard system devices), find the plug and play software
enumerator and install it

I don't remember for sure, but you may also need to copy the files
streamci.dll and swenum.sys from another machine (windows and windows
\system32 dirs) or the XP install CD to the same temp directory as the
modified machine.inf

 

[Paul]

Does the device show up in Control panel/sounds and audio devices/audio tab?

If it is not there, there may be a fix on Kelly's web site. Despite what
device manager indicates, if it not listed in the control panel, Windows
does not know it is present.

Thanks for the response David. If I'm understanding you correctly,
the answer to your question is no. The "Sounds and Audio Devices"
option from the Control Panel says "No Audio Device". That's the
problem.

It turned out to be a missing plug and play software enumerator...

I believe this is my problem also. And I did reinstall the "Plug and
Play Software Enumerator". I found variations of the process of doing
this. So far, it has not worked. It says that it has installed and
wants me to reboot. After rebooting the "Plug and Play Software
Enumerator" has an exclamation point in a yellow circle. So I click
on the properties and it says:

This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the
drivers required for this device. (Code 31)

So I'm working on fixing that.

 

[darkrats]

"This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers
required for this device. (Code 31)"

I really think this indicates that you're simply missing the drivers, or
that you installed the wrong drivers which would show the same message. I
took a look on the HP site for the needed drivers, but didn't see any for
the audio. Please post, if you have it handy, the onboard audio chipset
name. And, maybe clarify what you mean when you say that you "rebuilt your
computer". Did your computer come with any restore disks, or driver disks?

 

[darkrats]

Go here and see if your audio chipset is listed:

http://www.esstech.com/techsupp/drivers.shtm

 

[Paul]

I really think this indicates that you're simply missing the drivers, or

that you installed the wrong drivers which would show the same message.

I don't believe so. I believe the problem is with the "Plug and Play
Software Enumerator" device which is not loading. When I uninstall
the ESS Allegro drivers, within a minute, the OS (Windows XP)
recognizes the "New Hardware" and automatically installs it. The
install works great and the device says its working correctly.

http://www.esstech.com/techsupp/drivers.shtm

This is where I downloaded the driver(s). However, since I wanted to
do due diligence, I installed each of the drivers for XP that the
website had. It doesn't matter. The audio is working correctly.
It's just not "plugging in". Plus, that makes sense that my purchased
sound card would also not work. Installation, hardware and installing
of the drivers is all working correctly. Again, I say, it's just not
"plugging in".

Now, back to the "Plug and Play Software Enumerator" device. I've
read numerous articles that say this problem caused the audio to not
work. Unfortunately, their methods of resolving it has not worked for
me...yet. I'm still searching.

 

[Paul]

One more thing. The ESS website also had a tool that can give you
what hardware you have. Below are the results:

Finding ESS devices present under the PCI Enum tree.

HWID:: PCI\VEN_125D&DEV_1988&SUBSYS_B19D0E11&REV_12
Device: ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
Driver: {4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

So that tells me that I should use the "ES1988 Allegro" chip set
drivers (WDM1167). And that is what I'm using. However, as I said
earlier, I tried the others. They all seem to install and say the
device is working correctly. I don't believe this is where the
problem lies.

 

[David]

One more thing. The ESS website also had a tool that can give you
what hardware you have. Below are the results:

Finding ESS devices present under the PCI Enum tree.

HWID:: PCI\VEN_125D&DEV_1988&SUBSYS_B19D0E11&REV_12
Device: ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
Driver: {4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

So that tells me that I should use the "ES1988 Allegro" chip set
drivers (WDM1167). And that is what I'm using. However, as I said
earlier, I tried the others. They all seem to install and say the
device is working correctly. I don't believe this is where the
problem lies.

Paul, This is David again. Did you try Kelly's site? Go here and look under
where did my sounds go.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/top10faqs.htm

David

 

[Paul]

Ooops, I forgot to tell you what I meant by "rebuilt my PC".
Originally, my PC came with Windows ME. I purchased XP Pro a few
years back. Back then I deleted the partition on the hard drive,
essentially wiping everything out. I then installed XP. It worked
fine back then, without this problem.

Also, since then my hard drive died on me and so I had to rebuild it
again. No problems back then. Well, I like to rebuild it every year
or so. For some reason, this time I'm having this problem. So I know
it works. I just don't know why it's not this time.

 

[darkrats]

I found this after a Google search. It may help:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

In services, make sure that the WinAudio service is enabled,
automatic, and running. Then in Device Manager, System Devices make
sure Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator is installed ok.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you need to reinstall the Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator,
copy machine.inf from %windir%\inf to a temp dir
remove line 20: ExcludeFromSelect=*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now using the New hardware Wizard:

add new hardware \ have disk (select the temp dir
with the modified machine.inf) and install the
plug and play software enumerator


(swenum.sys is found in system32\drivers
streamci.dll is found in system32
or they can be found on your windows disk)

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Once that is reinstalled, uninstall the sound card drive, do a scan
for hardware changes then after it finds and reinstalls that card, you
should have sound again.

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Good luck, and post back results please.