Another no sound

This is my wife's PC, Dell Dimension E310, windows XP. This is basically a personal non-vital PC, but we're just trying to get speakers hooked up to it. I've tried both using the onboard sound and installing a (cheap but new) sound card, but I haven't had any luck with either. It keeps getting hung up during install (and uninstall) to the point that I usually have to power down manually. I've tried deleting and uninstalling all sigmatel drivers, then re-installing from the Dell website, but I just can't figure it out. I'd appreciate any tips- here is the everest report:

 

Greetings, humpback.

Why are you having to reinstall the sound drivers? Did the machine ever have sound, or did the audio quit working due to some event?

You may have to reload the Intel chipset drivers before loading the Sigmatel: you can find the package on the same Dell download page.

I would suggest uninstalling the PCI card before trying the onboard audio (what type of sound card is it, by the way?). Also, make sure onboard audio is enabled in the machine's BIOS.

 

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure if it ever had sound- it's one I grabbed from work a few years ago, just set it up for my wife a few months ago. It's possible it had a soundcard installed at some point, the onboard audio was set to off when I first tried to get it to work. Maybe that could be the issue- there is a "Creative" folder that may be causing a conflict?

I have downloaded the chipset drivers. Basically, I've spent hours trying everything I could find (here and elsewhere) and have had all sorts of error messages along the way, but no success.

The PCI card is Diamond 5.1. I've disabled onboard, deleted all Sigmatel files (including in the registry), and tried to install these drivers, but it still gets held up.

 

Agreed - I'd scrap that Creative folder. You might also d/l and run Driver Sweeper to clean up any traces you've missed.

Check your Services, make sure the Windows Audio service is running.

Strange that a discrete installation (the Diamond driver) is failing - are there any other issues going on with this machine? All updates on board? Might even check your Update history, see if there are any failed installs that might be causing something.

 

Updates are all set, no viruses, etc.

I uninstalled the creative program and deleted the folder. Ran the driver sweeper to make sure everything is gone, then downloaded the onboard Sigmatel driver from Dell again. It at least didn't hang up this time, but after it rebooted, it went to finish the installation and gave me the "the system does not support the driver you are attempting to install" error message. However, when I go to device manager, the Sigmatel codec is there and says it's working, no exclamation points or anything, but my PC is just jammed. If I try to open up sounds, nothing happens. I can't get online, etc.

 

When if finally lets me into Sounds and Audio devices, it's all greyed out. Under device manager, the Sigmatel Codec still says it's normal, but there are a bunch of Microsoft Kernel's that have the yellow exclamation points, so I uninstall those and reboot. Still no luck.

I'm thinking of getting rid of everything again, disabling the onboard and trying the PCI card, but I've already tried that without luck.

 

Just had a weird thought: the Everest report is showing an Intel Grantsdale-G i915GV motherboard with an 82915G/GV/910GL chipset. Why not dig into the Intel site, see if there are any drivers there, instead of the Dell drivers?
Don't know if Intel's got anything that might help, but it may be worth a look.

Also, have you visually inspected the motherboard? If you can, verify that the audio chip is indeed a Sigmatel - it's really strange that the supposedly correct drivers from Dell aren't being recognized.

 

Went into the intel driver utility, but it came back saying they only support MBs purchased through them- if it was purchased through a retailer (like Dell), they support it. So, looks like I'm stuck with Dell.

Just looked at the MB, yes the tiny little chip is a Sigmatel. No idea why this isn't working.

 

Ugh, this is frustrating. So I deleted everything, wiped the registry clean of anything Sigmatel, turned off the onboard in BIOS and tried installing the PCI soundcard again. Now the found new hardware wizard doesn't even come up- it takes a little while to boot up, and when I go into device manager, it has C-Media PCI Audio Device there. No exclamation marks, seems to be fine, but it doesn't work (not to mention I'm not sure where it's coming from). I tried loading the CD that came with the card, but it just gets jammed up before it installs the drivers.

Any clue?

 

Curiouser and curiouser.

I know what I'd do next: burn and boot to a live Linux distro, see if anything stands out in a non-Windows environment.

 

Now I really did it!

I went into system startup and changed the default operating system from xp pro to xp home, but now I can't even boot up- I get "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware".

I know I can change the boot.ini file to go back to xp pro, but I obviously can't get there if I can't load windows. Of course I don't have a CD to boot from.

Help?!?

 

F8 got me where I needed, duh.

It does bring up the possibility that this machine once had XP home, and the upgrade to XP pro has messed up my audio somehow?

 

Possible, especially if Service Packs and/or Windows Updates are thrown into the mix.
I still suggest a Linux boot - that should tell you definitively if this is a hardware or a software problem.

 

Forgive me, I've never worked with Linux. What would you suggest exactly?

 

Mint is very user friendly. Download the .iso from that link (I suggest the 32-bit CD version). Burn that file to a CD as an image, and then boot to the CD.
There's a good User Guide located on the page, also.
You will then be running in a live Linux environment (in other words, run the OS from the CD, not by installing it to the hard drive), and you can test your hardware from a non-Windows perspective.

 

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Again, not being familiar with Linux, how do I test the hardware while running it? Linux does not require the audio drivers, just plug the speakers into the onboard?

 

Most Linux distros carry their own open source drivers, especially for legacy hardware.
So, yes: once you're running in a live environment, you should be able to fire up the onboard audio and get a handle on whether this is driver related or if there are deeper BIOS or hardware related problems.

There are some troubling symptoms: the inability to load the Diamond software, the problems with the Sigmatel drivers, the slow boots, the 'can't get online', etc. Do you have a Windows XP disk?

 

No, I do not have the XP disk, but I did send a request to Dell for them- should get them next week. However, I'm thinking that I may get the XP home disk, since I think that's what originally came with the PC, instead of the currect XP Pro that's installed. It doesn't really matter to me, I may end up rolling back to home since this is only used for "play".

 

Good enough. I'd try the Linux disk (it's a great tool), but you may start preparing for a format/reinstall - looks as if you may have several issues going on.

An added plus: the Mint disk will allow you to access (and transfer to a USB drive or optical media) any important data on your HD in case Windows decides to crash further.