Audio Problems Please Help

[Nishat]

Hello all,

I recently had a bad prgram installation (Roxio Media Manager) which caused my computer to freeze right after starting up. After many hours of work I was able to uninstall the program, problem is I have a bad sound issue:

I have no sound! Windows Media player reports I have a problem with my sound device. I look in the control panel and it tells me I have no audio device detected.
I looked in the device manager and all my sound drivers are working properly with no conflicts.

I reinstall my sound drivers from MSI (and later RealTech) and I get the same problem..no sound.

Heres where it gets crazy: Some of my start up programs still make their start up sounds! Skype for instance makes the usual start up sounds. The call and hang up buttons produce sounds. When I go into my MSI sound manager program I can test out all the 3d sound effects with no problems! Why is it that the rest of the programs are non responsive? And why is it that the control panel and the device manager are telling me conflicting stories?

Here are my specs:

Windows XP Home
K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 1.0) Motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2.4 Ghz
7.1 channel audio codec RealTek ALC850.

Also: I went into the BIOS and the onboard sound is on auto. The only other option I think was Disable

Here is the url for my motherboard:
msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=165

Thank you all in advance

 

[Tmagic650]

Uninstall the sound driver from MSI and restart Windows. See if Windows reinstalls the driver properly

 

[Nishat]

I already tried that. Windows update brings up all my other driver updates just not any for my onboard sound

 

[Tmagic650]

Invest in a PCI sound card

 

[Nishat]

wow ok cool thanks man!

 

[Nishat]

seriously though, anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[Tmagic650]

No you have done all you can

 

[LookinAround]

i can add a little more info which may or may not help....

1) Sound card "driver" download s SOMETIMES include a program install (within the download file) in addition to a driver (e.g the control panel sound control applets). So you might also look in Add/Remove Programs to see if you have a sound application installed from MSI or RealTech (whoever provided the driver). If you do, then first uninstall the program (which will also uninstall the driver) and THEN try reinstalling the driver download software

2) Click Start->Run, enter dxdiag and see if the tool might help provide any info

/* EDIT */
Also are you runnnig SP3?? do you choose Custom when running Windows updates? do you have all the hardware optional updates installed?

 

[Nishat]

ok Thanks for attempting to solve my problem..I'll try and figure out if I can sort the driver out of the original driver package. ill get back to you about that soon.

Im running SP3 and I choose custom when running the updates. I have everything installed except for some monitor calibration tool.

 

[Tmagic650]

Thanks LookinAround, I hope it helps