Laptop recognises no sound devices but plays system sounds and wmp

[Daveskater]

Hi, recently my dad's laptop has gotten even worse. It's gradually been destroying itself after he finished paying for it but now the sound's gone nuts. It plays system sounds and he can play things in Windows Media Player and hear it but when you double click the volume icon it says there's no audio devices.

One thing that comes to mind is drivers but i don't have access to his pc that often and he still thinks i don't know what i'm doing so i'll break it even more, even though i've proven myself enough times :evil:

I've checked device manager and there's no conflicts in the sound and multimedia etc group and it says the device is working ok.

If anyone knows how to fix this problem then any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Ididmyc600]

Hi Dave

Dads are pretty mean people aren't they ? there you are offering your services and the miserable old git thinks your gonna break it...

Thing is, is it working enough for your Dad ?, if so i'd just leave it be until it finally gets to the point where it needs fixing.

If however you do manage to get your hands on it, then I'd just remove all the sound related items in Device Manager, then reboot and let then reinstall, this usually clears things like this up, you will need the driver disk (maybe) so make sure you have it before doing anything.

Regards

 

[Daveskater]

well the main problem with access to the pc is that he works alternating shifts each week and my work clashes with them quite a bit

well his pc needs fixing really because loads of dashes will come up on the display and the visuals will flicker about a bit and change so that it looks like the basic gui think that safe mode uses

i tried formatting and reinstalling windows but it made no difference whatsoever.

i can check the ati catalyst drivers or whatever they are (i've always been nvidia ), i think it's a radeon 9600 if i remember correctly but i won't guarantee it

it's a Fujitsu Siemens pc just for general information on paper it's a fair pc and it's better than mine in some ways but after the guarantee or whatever was on it ran out it started killing itself gradually