no sound = no Audio Device??

[Guest]

I cant get any sound to play on my computer. I cant even get Volume Control
from the Entertainment menu in Acessories. When I click on Volume Control I
get a message saying there is no active mixer devices available.
In the Sound and Audio devices in Control Panel, there is no Audio Device.
Do I have to re-install and audio device? How do I do that and where do I
do that?
thanks, this is very frustrating as I'm not very good with computers.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I cant get any sound to play on my computer. I cant even get
Volume Control from the Entertainment menu in Acessories. When I
click on Volume Control I get a message saying there is no active
mixer devices available.
In the Sound and Audio devices in Control Panel, there is no Audio
Device. Do I have to re-install and audio device? How do I do that
and where do I do that?
thanks, this is very frustrating as I'm not very good with
computers.

You need to be sure you have the correct driver installed..
A driver is software that allows your hardware to communicate with your
operating system (Windows XP.)

You must know what sound card you have. Look on your receipt/invoice for
the computer - ask the people you bought the system from, open it up and
look, etc.

There are applications out there that can identify what hardware you have,
but I think they all depend on a properly installed system - as I think they
pull the information from the registry. Perhaps they do not - so I will
recommend you try one..

Belarc Advisor
http://belarc.com/free_download.html

Once you know what you have, what next? Go get the latest driver for your
hardware/OS from the manufacturer's web page. For example, let's say you
have an NVidia chipset video card or ATI video card, perhaps a Creative
Labs sound card or C-Media chipset sound card...

NVidia Video Card Drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

ATI Video Card Drivers
http://www.atitech.com/support/driver.html

Creative Labs Sound Device
http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

C-Media Sound Device
http://www.cmedia.com.tw/e_download_01.htm

 

[boburke]

First go to your device manager, rite click my comp, properties,
hardware, device manager.. Look for any yellow flags. I am quite
certain your cound driver will have a yellow flag on it.

If there are NO yellows, this means windows isn't seeing your card at
all. Definetly a hardware issue.

If you see a yellow for your sound card your driver is messed up.
Hopefully it doesn't say "Unknown", it should say something like
Creative Sound Blaster Live (WDM) or something. If it does say
something like Creative, or, Nvidia, or something that rings a bell,
chances are you can uninstall the bad driver, reboot, and wallah.

However, it is not always that easy. There is a good chance your sound
card is onboard, and some drivers for onboard sound cards are a doozy.
I could go on and on with more troubleshooting... but, time is money.
hope this helped a little