HELP! No sound on my newly downgraded XP laptop

Hello, I am new to Major Geeks. This is my first post, I joined because I'm helpless and frustrated.

I looked for answers for this elsewhere, including this site, but I'm very new to this and stuff is either over my head, or meant for someone with different and specific hardware. Please be patient with me.

Okay, here's the situation- I have a Compaq Presario CQ50-215 nr laptop. It came installed with Vista, which I hated, so just yesterday I "downgraded" to XP, service pack 2. The only way I knew how to do this was with a friend's install disc and direct guidance.

So it installed and seems to work ok. Compaq doesn't support XP at all, but I found a site or two that listed driver support. here's the one I used:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/board/message?board.id=OS&thread.id=2064

The drivers are a few posts down.

I downloaded them directly and installed them in order, following each instruction. But I noticed that MS UAA, which I am not familiar with, didn't seem to install. It tried, giving me a brief "readying the install wizard" box, and then disappeared with no error message.

I pressed on, installing everything else, and things work on my laptop except for sound. Rather than audio, the most I can get is a LOUD apple-style beep when an important error or something comes up on my computer.

I've looked around and have seen SO many variables- hotfixes, registry edits, bla bla, and it's utterly confusing. All I want is to get sound out of my laptop, which seems to be the only thing not working. I'll try to provide any info you guys need, but I require very specific instructions because until yesterday I never even installed a driver before so I'm new to this and pretty confused.

Thanks in advance for any help! I really need it!

 

Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221

Possible solution found in this thread:
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1197797