OK. First a few "tech tidbits" as fyi for anyone reading this thread in the future that may help one troubleshoot AC97 sound card issues
1. All internal AC97 sound cards connect to the computer's internal "PCI" bus. This includes both
onboard and
internal addon sound cards (vs. addon USB sound cards which connect to USB)
2. If you look at the
System Devices section of dxdiag report, you find dxdiag lists all PCI connected hardware devices Windows detects on your computer. Again, this was in your dxdiag report so your AC97 sound card IS detected! (a first good step
)
Code:
Name: Contrôleur audio multimédia
Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_01D51028&REV_02\3&172E68DD&0&FD
Driver: n/a
3. AC97 sound cards that are missing their driver always (as far as i've seen) have the generic name "Multimedia Audio Controller" or in your case, it had that name even in French!
p.s. When Windows finds a driver it takes the device name from the driver file! So the device name In DevMgr usually changes before and after a device driver is found
4. Your onboard AC97 sound card is an Intel chip. We know this because the PCI vendor ID of your sound card is 8086. No small coincidence that PCI vendor ID
8086 is assigned to Intel
Code:
Device ID: PCI\VEN_[COLOR="Red"][B]8086[/B][/COLOR]&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_01D51028&REV_02\3&172E68DD&0&FD
And
all Intel Desktop AC97 chips use a driver from either
> IDT Sigmatel
> Realtek or
> ADI Soundmax
For your Intel desktop audio chip, it looks like it's Soundmax. All that said, please post the actual service tag on your Dell and will continue later..
/* edit */
I ask for the service tag as i see an anomaly. You said
My comp model is a Dimension 2300.
and dxdiag says the "Model Code" is
Dell maps that model code to a Dimension 1100. At first glance, both the 1100 and 2300 Dells have similar hardware (but drivers from Dell are different versions) so would like to check your model based on your service tag