No sound after XP reinstall

[hollymthornton]

Hi Everyone,

My 7 year old crashed my computer recently and I had to completely reinstall windows xp. The installation was smooth but now we have no sound. I visited the Dell website (I have a Dell XPS400) to download sound drivers. I tried all three that it offered and nothing. I have no clue what else to do. When I go into the sound section of the control panel, everything is grayed out. I do not know much about computers so I am not sure what else to do. Any help that can be offered would be great!

 

[mailpup]

Perhaps you didn't get the correct drivers. Did you use your Dell service tag number to navigate to the drivers? Before installing any new sound drivers make sure you uninstall your old ones first. I know that doesn't apply to the first one after your fresh XP reinstall but it does for the subsequent ones.

 

[hollymthornton]

I did use my service tag to locate the drivers on their site. One of them said it was not qualified for my machine and the install closed immediately. The other said something about not being able to locate correct software on my system or something. And the third was optional so I didnt try that.

I am not sure how to locate old drivers, if there are any even on my system. Where would I go to uninstall those?

 

[hollymthornton]

When I went to my device manager, I saw that the INT High Def Audio Codec had an exclamation mark next to it. I uninstalled it, restarted my computer, and reinstalled it. After the installation, I got an error message stating that it could not start (code 10).

 

[LookinAround]

List any Problem Devices

• Make sure devices are connected and powered on
• Click Start->Run, enter: msinfo32. Click the + sign next to Components to expand it
• Click Problem Devices. Anything appear?
• If yes, click on it, Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy it, Ctrl-V to paste into next post
• On the other hand, if no devices are listed, tell me so

Generate and attach a DirectX report

• Click Start->Run, enter dxdiag and click OK
  ===> If you’re running 32 bit Windows, dxdiag will launch on its own
  ===> If you’re running 64 bit Windows, you’ll see 64-bit DxDiag. Click it to launch the 64-bit version of dxdiag
• Notice progress in lower left window corner
• When done, click Save Information button and save to your Desktop
• In TechSpot window, use the paper clip icon to attach the report. (If you don't see icon you may need to first click Go Advanced)

 

[hollymthornton]

Hi and thank you for your reply!

Here is the information from msinfo32:

IDT High Definition Audio CODEC HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7680&SUBSYS_102801A7&REV_1032\4&2E42BC5E&0&0001 This device cannot start.
Video Controller PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5B70&SUBSYS_06031002&REV_00\4&1A646D2D&0&0108 The drivers for this device are not installed.
Video Controller (VGA Compatible) PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5B60&SUBSYS_06021002&REV_00\4&1A646D2D&0&0008 The drivers for this device are not installed.


I have attached the other report you requested. Thank you so much for helping me with this. I am about to pull my hair out!

 

[LookinAround]

Aside from your audio problem, i also think you don't have the video driver installed. On Dell site for your computer, under Video it looks like you need this one ATI-Driver Hyper Memory PCI-Express X16 (DVI/VGA/TV out) Radeon X300 SE (R118968.EXE)

As to your audio, the Sigmatel driver is the audio driver for your machine (fyi... IDT bought Sigmatel several years ago)

Try this: Ctl Panel->Add/Remove Programs
> Look through all entries and uninstall any entries you might see from Creative, IDT or Sigmatel

Then try downloading and installing the Sigmatel audio driver again from the Dell site

Hope that might help

 

[hollymthornton]

I was able to install the video driver. Thank you so much for pointing that out. I did what you suggested with the audio driver. I installed the IDT driver on my system. Went to the Dell website, downloaded Sigmatel. It went through the whole process - then when it was time to install, it said this was not the correct driver for my system and the installer exited. I dont know what else to do. Is there not a generic driver from somewhere else that I can download? I am sorry to be such a pain in the butt.

 

[hollymthornton]

I meant to say that I uninstalled IDT. Sorry.

 

[hollymthornton]

Just wanted to tell you that I figured it out! The Sigmatel driver had a previous version that I downloaded instead. Just thought I would give it a shot and it worked. Thank you so much for helping me through this!

 

[LookinAround]

Woo-Hoo! Excellent job! :grinthumb

Great idea to try a previous version as well! Score one for us humans. Congrats