Where's the sound?

[Morgan Wick]

I am using Windows XP on a Dell Inspiron laptop, and recently the sound
suddenly stopped working.

*Opening Volume Control gives me the error "There are no active mixer
devices available. To install mixer devices, go to Control Panel, click
Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Add Hardware. This program will
now close."
*Opening Device Manager now shows an "unknown device" under Sound, Video,
and Game Controllers. When I attempt to reinstall drivers, it attempts to
install the "Microsoft Kernel GS Wavetable Synthesizer", but gives me the
error message "An error occured during the installation of the device The
data is invalid."
*Because of damage to my hard disk, I have two installations of Windows.
After running an internet search to learn more about this "Microsoft Kernel
GS Wavetable Synthesizer", I did a search on my computer and found that my
old installation of Windows had swmidi.sys in both (Windows
folder)\system32\drivers and (Windows folder)\Driver Cache\i386\driver.cab,
while my new installation only had it in (Windows folder)\Driver
Cache\i386\driver.cab. I copied the version in the new installation's
driver.cab to \system32\drivers and rebooted, but nothing changed.
*Running sigverif.exe found that the version of swmidi.sys I copied from
driver.cab was unsigned, but it did not reach that conclusion with the
version in driver.cab or either version in the old Windows installation.

I'm considering copying the version in my old Windows installation
(\system32\drivers) to my new Windows installation but I'd like to make sure
there isn't something glaringly obvious I'm missing, or even not so obvious.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

No, your idea is very reasonable. The 'signed driver' message indicates that
only the 'in use' copy is bad, and putting in the old one is a good bet.
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Mark L. Ferguson
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[Morgan Wick]

That took care of that part of the problem. However, after rebooting, I still
have no sound and Volume Control still tells me that I have no active mixer
devices available. Sounds and Audio Devices still detects "no audio device".
Device Manager lists the following items under Sound, Video, and Game
Controllers: Audio Codecs, Legacy Audio Drivers, Legacy Video Capture
Devices, Media Control Devices, SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC, and
Video Codecs.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Update: When I attempt to use SigmaTel's Setup utility, I get the error
0x80040706, description: object reference not set. Note that this is coming
from SigmaTel's program and doesn't necessarily correspond to a Windows error.

I think I'm taking this issue to SigmaTel and Dell support...

 

[Curly Puppy]

Update: When I attempt to use SigmaTel's Setup utility, I get the error
0x80040706, description: object reference not set. Note that this is coming
from SigmaTel's program and doesn't necessarily correspond to a Windows error.

I think I'm taking this issue to SigmaTel and Dell support...