Does anyone fancy a challenge?

[Stuart]

Hi, I'll try to be as through as I can.

I've never seen this problem before and up to now I am stumped for what
could be the problem. First I'll go thorough the symptoms, then what I
believe is the cause and then I'll tell you what I've tried.

My sound is to put no finer point on it buggered! I have no volume control
in my taskbar, however when I go into the 'Sounds and Audio Devices'
control panel applett the tick bao for showing in taskbar is ticked.
Going to the next tab in hte applett shows I have a sound scheme selected,
howver when I try to play a sound the little play button next to the file
selection box is greyed out.
When I start XP I get no logon music, infact I get no system sounds what
so ever.
My DVD's play video in powerdvd but do not play audio.
I get no audio from hte internet (my kids were playing some flash games
with no sound)
However I can play the MP3's on my PC in Media Player10 without a problem.
I can also play the system sounds directly from the c:\windows\media
folder again through media player10. I have ran dxdiag.exe and hte music
and sounds that it play are fine. So the problem is not with my speakers
or my audio cable. I have also tried playing a wav file in sound recorder
but again the little play button was greyed out.

Those are all the symptons I can think of for now, I have not tried but I
am presuming audio CD's will play through media player, as my MP3's play
fine.

Last week I updated my divx codec, my xvid codec and I installed a codec
for mp4's, now I am presuming that it was one of these that has wrecked my
computer.

The first thing I did was to uninstall all the codecs I had installed last
week. no difference. I then checked my device manager, no conflicts. no
little warning signs nothing wrong there. I am very particular about
viruses and spyware, and I make sure my computer is always protected,
still I ran both a virus checker (mcafee) and spybot and lavasoft, all
truned up clean. As I write this I have just thought I have not checked
for rootkits, but I doubt it would be that, still I will check tonight.

So all the codecs are uninstalled, I have unchecked the show volume
control in taskbar and reticked it, I have unselected a sound scheme and
reselected. no joy.

I have check the registry in hte root of curent user for a null entry
there, that is fine.

I have done all the audio fixes over at kellys-corner. no joy.

I have deleted the sndvol32.exe from hte system32 folder and allowed it to
be replaced from dllcache. no joy.

I have reinstalled media player10. no joy.

I have uninstalled my sound card and allowed it to be reinstalled at boot
up. no joy.

Under device manager\Sound video and game controllers I have an audio
codecs, going into the properties of this I have only one Audio
Compression codec, Microsoft PCM converter. I thought I had found the
problem. On my machine at work, I had a load of codecs under there, so I
thought thats what the problem was untill I uninstalled them one by one
from my machine at work leaving only the PCM converter, like my home PC.
and my sound still works at work.

I have a realtek ac97 sound card. going to realtek.com.tw I was able to
download the ac97 codec pack, installed that, and guess what still only
one codec under device manager, and still no sound.

The only thing I haven't done is an SFC /SCANNOW which I will do tonight.
but I'm not hlding out much hope. It is the last thing I can think of to
try. I really don't want to have to rebuild my machine, but I'm afraid
that will be my only option.

Sorry for the long post, and I just hope that someone out there can help,
as I'm at a complete loss.

Thanks in advance

Stuart

 

[Newport]

Try to go back doing a system retore to the last date the pc works fine,
prior to the installation of the codecs

--

 

[Stuart]

Try to go back doing a system retore to the last date the pc works fine,
prior to the installation of the codecs

Too easy I'm afraid. Unfortunaltely I can't, I don't use system restore.

 

[Newport]

Big mistake

Good Luck

--

Too easy I'm afraid. Unfortunaltely I can't, I don't use system restore.

 

[Guest]

wow, its hard to suggest anything because you've already tried everything
everyone knows!!! good luck

 

[LeDave]

Uninstall the drivers then either unplug the soundcard (if not
intergrated to MB) and relocate it to another slot or change the IRQ in
the BIOS.

 

[LeDave]

The only system restore I trust: format C:, FDISK /MBC and reinstall.

 

[Stuart]

Uninstall the drivers then either unplug the soundcard (if not
intergrated to MB) and relocate it to another slot or change the IRQ in
the BIOS.

Cheers for the suggestion. I'll give that a go tonight and let you know
how I get on

 

[Frank]

I have a realtek ac97 sound card. going to realtek.com.tw I was

able to
download the ac97 codec pack, installed that, and guess what still
only
one codec under device manager, and still no sound.

Realtec is a chip maker. Do you have a sound card or an onboard
chip. If it is
an onboard chip, you must use the mainboard drivers from the
mainboard web
page. If it is a sound card using the realtek chip you should go to
the sound cards
web page.

 

[Lindsay]

I can't imagine it's anything to do with the soundcard or drivers if you can
play mp3's. Go to kellys corner http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm where
there is some tweaks for fixing sound problems. I reckon it's the codecs you
installed.

 

[Stuart]

I can't imagine it's anything to do with the soundcard or drivers if you
can play mp3's. Go to kellys corner http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm
where there is some tweaks for fixing sound problems. I reckon it's the
codecs you installed.

I think its the codecs I've installed as well.

I've been to kellys corner and tried all the sound tweaks there.

Thanks

 

[lurkswithin]

I had a similar experience as for some reason my audio codecs just
disappeared and shut down all sound. I looked around and tried all
the various different fixes and even tried to reinstall my AC97
codecs and still no go. I also thought that it was something to do
with some codecs that I had downloaded prior to this happening.These
were divx and mpeg4 codecs if that helps anyone.

Anyway after a bit I downloaded the xp codec pack from
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/XP_Codec_Pack.htm

which didn't work properly till I rebooted and presto everything was
back to working.

Hope it works for you too.

 

[paulmd]

Hi, I'll try to be as through as I can.

I've never seen this problem before and up to now I am stumped for what
could be the problem. First I'll go thorough the symptoms, then what I
believe is the cause and then I'll tell you what I've tried.

My sound is to put no finer point on it buggered! I have no volume control
in my taskbar, however when I go into the 'Sounds and Audio Devices'
control panel applett the tick bao for showing in taskbar is ticked.
Going to the next tab in hte applett shows I have a sound scheme selected,
howver when I try to play a sound the little play button next to the file
selection box is greyed out.
When I start XP I get no logon music, infact I get no system sounds what
so ever.
My DVD's play video in powerdvd but do not play audio.
I get no audio from hte internet (my kids were playing some flash games
with no sound)
However I can play the MP3's on my PC in Media Player10 without a problem.
I can also play the system sounds directly from the c:\windows\media
folder again through media player10. I have ran dxdiag.exe and hte music
and sounds that it play are fine. So the problem is not with my speakers
or my audio cable. I have also tried playing a wav file in sound recorder
but again the little play button was greyed out.

I'm not sure dxdiag will prove you have no problem with the audio
cable. The only way to be sure is to open the box and see that the
cable from the CD to the sound card in plugged in.

Those are all the symptons I can think of for now, I have not tried but I
am presuming audio CD's will play through media player, as my MP3's play
fine.

MP3s are a different beast, an audio CD uses the cable, mp3s dont.
Except MP10, and many newer programs should overcome this.

This would make more sense if you didn't have so many OTHER audio
problems, however. THis would only explain the powerdvd issue, and
maybe the no audio CD issue.

 

[Stuart]

Cheers for the suggestion. I'll give that a go tonight and let you know
how I get on

I was unable to change the IRQ setting on my sound card, the BIOS wouldn't
let me. My IRQ settings are set to auto, but even changing this to manual
would not let me change the IRQ settings, either in hte bios or in windows.

The only thing I could do was to disable my sound card, which I tried (
dont ask me why but I'm getting desperate) but this made no difference.

I also ran my sfc /scannow, but as I thought this didn't make any
difference either.

Tnx

 

[Stuart]

I'm not sure dxdiag will prove you have no problem with the audio
cable. The only way to be sure is to open the box and see that the
cable from the CD to the sound card in plugged in.


MP3s are a different beast, an audio CD uses the cable, mp3s dont.
Except MP10, and many newer programs should overcome this.

This would make more sense if you didn't have so many OTHER audio
problems, however. THis would only explain the powerdvd issue, and
maybe the no audio CD issue.

This was working untill last week, and timing is too close to me messing
about with the codecs, making me think it is a software issue rather than
hardware.

In terms of hte cable I meant the cable with the green jackplugs, not my
CD audio cable. True DXDiag would not use my internal cable and neither
would mp3's. So it could be my internal cable except for two things, one;
system sounds aren't working either, and they don't use the cable, and my
CD drive supports DAE!

 

[digisol]

Reinstal the O/

 

[Stuart]

Reinstal the O/S

Yeah I wanted to avoid that if possible, but I'm begining to think its the
only thing left to do.

Its bugging me though, if somethings broke (and I undoubtably broke it) I
should be able to fix it!

Tnx