Sound suddenly vanished

[WinSoft technol]

Sound suddenly vanished.

right very bizzare i know but yes it happened. My m8 was using Windows Media Player 9 last night and it was working fine with no problems. He boots up this morning and suddenly discovers he has no sound.

His system specifications are as follows:

• P4 1.8 Ghz
• 256 Mb DDR RAM
• Unknown board model but it is a compaq
• standard 350W PSU also compaq
• Windows 2000 OS

sorry his PC is very old and its seems to have been "hashed" together

Recent Changes
I though at first it might be something to do with recent changes to the PC but the only recent change i can think off that may have affected it is the installation of uTorrent which he is using to download songs and YES i have removed this. however this did not work

What i have tried

1) I kinda knew it wasnt windows Media Player at fault as there were no system sounds either but anyway i still tried a fress install on Windows Media Player 9. X - No good

2) Downloaded the Realtek AC'97 audio codecs - So far so good. tried to INSTALL these drivers but it crashed through every install attempt!!! not impressed!!!

3) he then told me he DID have soundmax on there but this had now sibsequently disappeared. I didn think that this would have made much difference but i tried a fresh install of the Soundmax Drivers X - No good

4) though then that perhaps the audiobuilder had been turned off but cant seem to find it on 2000 (maybe im looking in the wrong place???)


UM.....
sorta at a loose end now as my knowledge of 2K is very limited. he is consider a possible upgrade fo XP as he JUST about has the specs for it. AS i don know the motherboard model would u be able to install XP on the PC and then install the Realtek Audio AC'97 codecs to get the sound?

Thanks for the help guys

Nesbitt

 

[B00kWyrm]

would u be able to install XP on the PC

If he wants to run xp, he has met the minimum requirements as I read them http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865

I am running winn2k on one machine still, and have no desire to change, but I am running sp4.
I would highly recommend that you doublecheck this, as the latest sp has urgent security updates.

and then install the Realtek Audio AC'97 codecs to get the sound

He should be able to get either os to get sound...
To get there with 2k may require using driver cleaner ... http://www.drivercleaner.net/

 

[Tmagic650]

Hey B00kWyrm,
you do realize that you can upgrade your Win2K install to Windows XP, SP3 easily, except maybe needing to up your RAM a bit. I have all the microsoft Install OS dicscs from Windows 95 thru Windows 7 RC... XP is installed on every computer that won't handle Vista at this point, in my shop

 

[B00kWyrm]

Thanks Tmagic...
I just had no desire to spend money on another copy of another operating system right now.
At this point I am thinking of doing a build, and may wait for win7 for it, based on other information I am seeing.
At that point I will probably retire this 2k machine by donating to a "Not for Profit" that needs one.
Of course that gets into other issues... but... That's my thinking at the moment.

 

[Tmagic650]

"At that point I will probably retire this 2k machine by donating to a "Not for Profit" that needs one"...
Great idea

I just refurbished an old Compaq desktop intel 733MHz machine (2000). It had Win2K installed. It took Windows XP fine

 

[WinSoft technol]

hi thanks for the replies guys

actually managed to get XP on the PC but now i cant seem to get the Network drivers installed.

can i simply download the Ethernet controller drivers for the board or do i need the ones specific to the board??

 

[Tmagic650]

"Can i simply download the Ethernet controller drivers for the board or do i need the ones specific to the board?"...

Yes, for the specific motherboard... please do!