Recurring sound problem

I have a problem that's been annoying me for nearly 3 weeks now, and that is that at random times, my computer will crash. That isn't the problem, the problem is that when it reboots, the startup is incredibly slow all of a sudden, and my sound doesn't work. In going to control panel and going to Sounds and Audio Devices, I see "No audio device". When I go to computer management and look at my drivers, everything appears normal, but when I try to uninstall, disable or update my Realtek Ac'97 Audio drivers, it hangs indefinitely after I confirm the removal. I tried going into safe mode and uninstalling, but same results there. I can also not update it, rollback it or fix it using Driversweeper, which someone else recommended to me.

I can manage to fix it through a great deal of trouble somehow if I keep trying at it a few times, but the problem will happen again the next day or sometime soon.

A couple of other things: until I can manage to get sound working again, it is impossible to turn off my computer properly, I have to use the power button to turn it off. If I shut it down through windows it'll get stuck at the blue shutting down screen forever. I have windows XP home and I haven't got the xp disk to repair it with. I am using onboard audio. I also can't do anything with any other drivers or the same hanging results will happen. I have a Compaq Presario SR1010z.

This is very annoying and if anyone can help I'd greatly appreciate it, this has been happening for a while now and I can't seem to fix it no matter what I try.

edit, adding info: The last 2 major things I did was reinstall my system using the recovery partition due to not being able to get past the compaq splash logo, and I also got rid of some bad malware, and I'm sure the problem isn't a virus or MW.

When downloading the driver, I'm told "The original driver is in c:\HP\drivers..etc, installl it through device manager", but the problem is I can't.

 

Hi and welcome to MG's,
The majority of time it is usually malware/virus infection that causes this type of issue, I would strongly advise that you go through the removal steps for you OS here... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 ..try to complete all the scans and create a new thread here... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35 ... and post logs in the order requested like this.... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86880

if the problem persists post back here and we will go through a few fix's with you to try and remedy your audio ok.

iain.t :major

 

Okay I'm sure it's not malware. Let me add some info, I found my dvd drive wasn't working, so I unplugged it and was unable to reinstall my drivers just fine. I kept my dvd drive unplugged to see if it would fix the problem, only it still happens. So I just plugged in the dvd drive back, and my sound was working again, drivers all installed, but I couldn't change the volume using the buttons on my keyboard, and the sound icon doesn't appear in my taskbar. I can only change the volume by going to control panel and changing it there. Whenever my sound wasn't working, if a window popped up with a message, it would make my computer speaker beep. Even though my sound is working now it still beeps when I get a popup from windows.

Any help, and is there a proper way to check for a bad dvd drive? I've got a Pioneer DVD-RW, but I'm not sure what replacing it would do since I still had problems even with it unplugged.

 

I've determined that the sound drivers are not the problem, it's something to do with my DVD drive. The problem has gotten worse with my computer hanging even when doing a low process thing like just watching videos. If I run into the problem again, I just unplug my dvd drive, restart, unplug it and restart it again and everything runs fine, and for some reason my log in cookies for websites are gone. If the problem arises with it unplugged, I plug it back in and it works. If I disable my dvd drive while it's plugged in, sound works but I can't change the volume using my keyboard and have to use control panel.

 

You need to make a new thread in the hardware forum ... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22 ... as this is now not a driver issue and you will get more dedicated help in the correct forum.

good luck :major