Vista Crashes when Changing/Adjusting Sound

[pitseleh21]

Hi,

I've been having this problem for about a week with Windows Vista
32bit where the computer freezes if I try to adjust the sound. It
happens when changing the volume through the Vista sound icon, in
Windows Media Player, or when using the volume keys on the keyboard. I
believe it started after my computer locked up and I had Windows Media
Player open and playing sound.

The system doesn't usually full freeze though, so I can still Control-
Alt-Delete to the Vista screen and I am able to load Task Manager, but
I can't click on anything (either the taskbar or any open windows).
The Alt-Tab window also opens but won't switch between windows.
Sometimes I can logoff from the Ctrl-Alt-Delete screen, but sometimes
I have to hard reboot the computer.

The computer I'm using is a Dell Latitude laptop, with the 'Sigmatel
High Definition Audio'. It came with Vista installed already.

So far, I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the sound card
drivers, using both the drivers found by Windows and the drivers that
Dell has on their website. I've also tried a registry cleaner type
program in case something became corrupted but that didn't help
either. I'm thinking at this point reformatting is my only option, but
hopefully I've missed something so that I don't have to go down that
road.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

You probably need to contact Dell support about this one since it might a
problem with their device drivers.