Recurring sound failures

[MikeB]

This is driving me up the wall. I have a dual-use computer that my
daughter and I share. Frequently the sound fails and I have to jump
through hoops to get it restored.

Initially, this was an IBM Aptiva with a sound card. I found that if I
deleted the sound card from the hardware configuration and rebooted,
Windows would detect the device and reinstall it and sound would
function again.

Recently I totally revamped the PC, replacing the original motherboard
with an Intel DP35DP (http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DP35DP/
index.htm) motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, new memory and
a new harddrive.

The new motherboard has integrated sound - Intel® High Definition
Audio subsystem in the following configuration:

8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem with five analog audio outputs and one
optical S/PDIF digital audio output using the Sigmatel* STAC9271D
audio codec.

And again the failure of sound occurs! I have messed around, trying to
find the sound device to uninstall as I did previously, but this time
the sound device is not easy to spot from the list in the Device
Manager: (http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/
EmmaPCdevicemanager.jpg)

I have found tht if I reinstall some INF files and the Sigmatel
driver, sound returns to the PC. Unfortunately, it seems that every
time I do this, I get another soun device in the list of sound
devices: http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/Sounddevices.jpg

So now I'm getting a bit desperate. Not only is this problem driving
me up the wall, I'm losing cred with my daughter as the "Dad that can
fix things!"

Any advice on what I can do?

 

[DL]

After installing the new motherboard you did a repair installation of Win &
installed the drivers supplied with your motherboard, on cd?

This is driving me up the wall. I have a dual-use computer that my
daughter and I share. Frequently the sound fails and I have to jump
through hoops to get it restored.

Initially, this was an IBM Aptiva with a sound card. I found that if I
deleted the sound card from the hardware configuration and rebooted,
Windows would detect the device and reinstall it and sound would
function again.

Recently I totally revamped the PC, replacing the original motherboard
with an Intel DP35DP (http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DP35DP/
index.htm) motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, new memory and
a new harddrive.

The new motherboard has integrated sound - Intel® High Definition
Audio subsystem in the following configuration:

8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem with five analog audio outputs and one
optical S/PDIF digital audio output using the Sigmatel* STAC9271D
audio codec.

And again the failure of sound occurs! I have messed around, trying to
find the sound device to uninstall as I did previously, but this time
the sound device is not easy to spot from the list in the Device
Manager: (http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/
EmmaPCdevicemanager.jpg)

I have found tht if I reinstall some INF files and the Sigmatel
driver, sound returns to the PC. Unfortunately, it seems that every
time I do this, I get another soun device in the list of sound
devices: http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/Sounddevices.jpg

So now I'm getting a bit desperate. Not only is this problem driving
me up the wall, I'm losing cred with my daughter as the "Dad that can
fix things!"

Any advice on what I can do?

 

[MikeB]

Complete clean install, I also installed a new harddrive as I posted
originally. New sound drivers from the Intel website.

 

[RJK]

You didn't fit the "old" sond card from your original Aptiva guts to your
new motherboard did you ?

If so you MUST switch off the onboard sound chip in BIOS

....or REMOVE the pci soundcard and switch on the onbaord sound chip in bios


regards, Richard


This is driving me up the wall. I have a dual-use computer that my
daughter and I share. Frequently the sound fails and I have to jump
through hoops to get it restored.

Initially, this was an IBM Aptiva with a sound card. I found that if I
deleted the sound card from the hardware configuration and rebooted,
Windows would detect the device and reinstall it and sound would
function again.

Recently I totally revamped the PC, replacing the original motherboard
with an Intel DP35DP (http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DP35DP/
index.htm) motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, new memory and
a new harddrive.

The new motherboard has integrated sound - Intel® High Definition
Audio subsystem in the following configuration:

8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem with five analog audio outputs and one
optical S/PDIF digital audio output using the Sigmatel* STAC9271D
audio codec.

And again the failure of sound occurs! I have messed around, trying to
find the sound device to uninstall as I did previously, but this time
the sound device is not easy to spot from the list in the Device
Manager: (http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/
EmmaPCdevicemanager.jpg)

I have found tht if I reinstall some INF files and the Sigmatel
driver, sound returns to the PC. Unfortunately, it seems that every
time I do this, I get another soun device in the list of sound
devices: http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/HollowOak/Sounddevices.jpg

So now I'm getting a bit desperate. Not only is this problem driving
me up the wall, I'm losing cred with my daughter as the "Dad that can
fix things!"

Any advice on what I can do?

 

[MikeB]

Richard, no, I *didn't* fit the old sound card.

 

[DL]

If you dont have a sound card installed and used the manu drivers you would
appear to have done it all correctly.
When you lose sound are ther any conficts shown in Hardware Devices for your
sound device?
Do you have any other cards installed (I dont mean sound)?


Richard, no, I *didn't* fit the old sound card.

 

[MikeB]

There are no conflicts and no errors in device manager (I linked to a
screenshot in my OP) apart from the LAN device which I have disabled
so that it doesn't show up as an error in the taskbar. I have a D-Link
Wireless card installed..

 

[DL]

Other than perhaps checking Intel site for any support - I found a reference
in google to problems with this driver and winxp sp2
Perhaps see if when booting in safe mode whether it retains the sound, if it
does consistantly that might tend to suggest that some other device is
conflicting with the driver

There are no conflicts and no errors in device manager (I linked to a
screenshot in my OP) apart from the LAN device which I have disabled
so that it doesn't show up as an error in the taskbar. I have a D-Link
Wireless card installed..

 

[RJK]

....umm ...sound drivers installed whilst anti-virus disabled ?
....running the sound card setup.exe rather than "installing" an *.inf ?
....logged in as/with full adminstrator priveliges ?

....mmm

?

regards, Richard



Richard, no, I *didn't* fit the old sound card.

 

[MikeB]

...umm ...sound drivers installed whilst anti-virus disabled ?

Yes, I did the install before installing A/V

 

[RJK]

After re-reading this thread, it keeps nagging at me that in your OP you
said that yours is a "dual use" computer,
....which makes one suspect that you have setup multiple user profiles, which
still leads one to suspect that it's to do with multiple user profiles, even
though you say that you were logged in as admin, when installing sound
driver !

I don't pretend to understand multiple user profiles but, I understand that
one can, with the correct permissions, install different software -
including drivers ? - for different users/profiles.

i.e. despite having fought with IBM PC compatibles for over 25 years, I've
never quite understood the situation where, one installs a stand alone PC
for one user, (therefore never sets up multiple user profiles), one still
seems to end up with them, and then one installs .dotner framworks because
an app. needs it - and then one ends up with yet another one - that can be
deleted !

I digress, ...what to suggest ...some newer boards have jumpers to configure
ATX sound jack sockets,

....anyhooo, "failure of sound" ...does that mean definately that (usually
green) sound out jack definately isn't outputting anything, e.g. you've
swapped out speakers, (speakers powered up?), or tried a pair of headphones
? ...we've all repeatedly missed something simple before now !!

....dunno what else to suggest ?

regards, Richard

...umm ...sound drivers installed whilst anti-virus disabled ?

Yes, I did the install before installing A/V

 

[MikeB]

After re-reading this thread, it keeps nagging at me that in your OP you
said that yours is a "dual use" computer,
...which makes one suspect that you have setup multiple user profiles, which
still leads one to suspect that it's to do with multiple user profiles, even
though you say that you were logged in as admin, when installing sound
driver !

I don't pretend to understand multiple user profiles but, I understand that
one can, with the correct permissions, install different software -
including drivers ? - for different users/profiles.

i.e. despite having fought with IBM PC compatibles for over 25 years, I've
never quite understood the situation where, one installs a stand alone PC
for one user, (therefore never sets up multiple user profiles), one still
seems to end up with them, and then one installs .dotner framworks because
an app. needs it - and then one ends up with yet another one - that can be
deleted !

I digress, ...what to suggest ...some newer boards have jumpers to configure
ATX sound jack sockets,

...anyhooo, "failure of sound" ...does that mean definately that (usually
green) sound out jack definately isn't outputting anything, e.g. you've
swapped out speakers, (speakers powered up?), or tried a pair of headphones
? ...we've all repeatedly missed something simple before now !!

...dunno what else to suggest ?

regards, Richard

The computer is primarily used by my daughter to play games or go to a
few approved websites. I have an account on it that I want to use to
analyze a large data file using Access. My wife manipulates photos on
the computer. We have separate accounts simply so that each gets his
own desktop icons/layout. All the accounts have administrator
privileges - they were all created during Windows install.

I have run the setup for the INF files and the soundcard twice from
my account and once from my daughter's account.

As I said, the hardware is fine. After I run the install and reboots,
I get sound, but then something happens that does not cause a warning
or error in the eventlog and the sound goes away. The hardware remains
unchanged. It is simply a more cumbersome process to fix on the new
computer since the sound card isn't so visibly identifyable in Device
Manager as the previous sound card was. Then a simple uninstall of the
hardware would force a reboot and during the reboot Windows would
detect the sound card and reinstall it, making the sound work
perfectly. Now I have the added steps of sunning the installs and
creating multiple devices in the sound configuration (cf. my first
post with an image).