No Audio... Need Help!

[Keebler Elf]

So as many of you are aware, I've been having problems with my computer (specifically, intermittent SATA drive disconnects/reconnects). As part of my troubleshooting, I decided to do a fresh install of Win XP since my last install was almost 2 years ago. Here's how it went... Not fun.

I loaded Win XP onto one partition of one of my IDE drives (not the one with my old OS). Obviously I disconnected everything but the mobo, the drive in question, and the RAM. Windows installed normally but right off the bat I thought something wasn't right. Where was the Windows jingle upon startup? I subsequently realized I had not plugged in my speakers, but regardless shouldn't I still have been getting the onboard mobo audio? Plugging in the speakers later didn't help either.

Installed the drivers for my mobo (which were required to get internet access), downloaded all the Win XP updates, then tried to install my Sound Blaster card to see if that would fix the audio problems. Nope, it only exacerbated my problems. When loading the drivers for the SB (off the provided CD), it didn't seem to go smoothly and immediately rebooted my computer without asking if I wanted it to. For some reason I don't think the SB drivers took. They subsequently loaded but I can't help but think something got fucked in the process. Regardless, upon startup I started getting popup messages saying my ATI drivers aren't working properly, either because they weren't installed properly or because they failed. There is an option to turn this message off. IIRC, that message always appears when I plug in audio/video cards because they displace the onboard audio/video from the mobo. Other than the popup (which I disabled), no adverse impact (except I still don't have sound). In addition to the ATI message, I was also getting popup errors saying "_except_handler4_common" and "P17RunE.dll". I googled these and I think they have to do with incompatibility of software with Vista (WTF???). I then installed my video card and no problems there.

At this point I figured something was seriously fucked with the install because I would always get the latter two messages and they couldn't be disabled. When installing the Windows updates I had accepted a couple optional .NET installs and I suspected those might have fucked things up.

So what did I do? A completely fresh install. That killed most of my day today. *Sigh*

I now have Win XP installed with all updates (except the optional ones I don't want/need), my video card installed (with the latest drivers), Mozilla, and I'm about to install McAfee. Other than still getting the ATI driver problem message (which I've disabled), everything is working fine except still no audio.

This has me perplexed. I can hear the occasional/normal beeps from my computer but absolutely no audio from Windows. Also no audio from movies. When I try to play a movie I get a beep and a message that there is no audio device detected/installed on my computer. When I go into Device Manager, there are no yellow question marks. There was one (during both installs) for a Bus device but that was resolved with an automatic driver update. When I go to Audio in Control Panel, all of the audio options (e.g., volume control) are greyed out and can't be changed.

The fucked up part is that I had audio just fine this morning. The only change was pulling out the SB card for the fresh install.

At this point I'm leery of trying to install the SB card because: 1) The driver install didn't go smoothly the first time; and 2) if I don't have any mobo/onboard audio, don't I have bigger issues than the SB card?

I'm tempted to go back to my original install (still accessible on my old drive) and see if sound works from there (with the card plugged in, like it was this morning).

Can anyone help? This is very frustrating...

 

[Master Baiter]

Did you install the chipset drivers for your mobo? Is the SB card being inserted fully into the slot? Are you using old drivers for your SB and vid card or did you DL the most current ones? Have you tried resetting your BIOS to factory default? System beeps will always come through your PC speaker. Try a different PCI slot for your SB card.

 

[Keebler Elf]

** Double Sigh **

So I woke up this morning, turned on my computer... and promptly got the "insert proper boot device or insert bootable CD."

I rebooted several times and kept getting the same message until finally I got a message saying Windows/drivers32/ntfs are corrupt and/or missing.

So I attempted to Repair with the original boot disk and that was a dismal failure. It took me into DOS and I ran the chkdsk command. It found one error but didn't say it fixed it. I also tried the fixboot command but that must have royally fucked things up because Windows became unbootable. Every time I rebooted it would get to the Windows splash page, flash a blue screen of death, and then reboot in an endless cycle.

So now I'm facing a third installation. *Sigh*

Prior to trying that, I decided to plug everything back in the way it was and try to install from my old OS installation. It worked!!! (so far) So I'm back to the point I was at yesterday morning with my 2-year-old install. But hey, at least it works. And guess what? I've got full audio! Go figure.

Now that I think about it, when I installed my SB card many months ago, IIRC I went to BIOS (?) and disabled the onboard mobo audio (or maybe it was video for my video card, or maybe both, I can't recall). So I'm thinking my audio works with my old install because I have the SB and video cards fully installed and that's what BIOS is expecting, but since I changed BIOS the new installation may be thinking the onboard audio/video have been disabled. But that's just a guess.

BIOS stays the same no matter which hard drive/OS you boot from, correct? Isn't BIOS stored on the mobo?

At this point I really don't want to reset my BIOS because that could put me in a situation where I can't use my old OS installation and if I continue to face problems with a new install, then I'm fucked.

So at this point I'm thinking about buying a new computer.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Did you install the chipset drivers for your mobo? Is the SB card being inserted fully into the slot? Are you using old drivers for your SB and vid card or did you DL the most current ones? Have you tried resetting your BIOS to factory default? System beeps will always come through your PC speaker. Try a different PCI slot for your SB card.

First thing I did after installing Windows was install the drivers for my mobo. It's an ATI all-in-one driver set off the CD. I used the Update Drivers command but no hits.

I tried inserting the SB card twice so I'm pretty sure. The first time the card was detected on Device Manager and it appeared that the drivers were installed. Audio still didn't work though.

I was using the drivers off the SB CD. Same with the video card, and the latter was upgraded with the latest drivers via Windows Update.

I haven't reset my BIOS (see above post for why). But I suspect the onboard audio/video mobo option has been turned off from my old install.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Your using a SATA card, not MOBO resident SATA right? I'm trying to do this from memory, didn't go back and read your previous posts. I still think this card (or it's drivers) is the root of the problem. Is the new OS HD using the same power, SATA port and cable as the old OS HD?

As per Master Baiter, did you install the latest drivers for the MOBO?

No, these issues have nothing to do with SATA. I didn't even get to the point of trying to install the SATA adaptor card (the mobo is IDE not SATA) before I ran into the audio and subsequent Windows crashing problems.

I agree that it's probably the SATA drivers that were the problem with my intermittent drive disconnects. That's why I was doing a fresh OS install (I had an earlier SATA adaptor card for 1 SATA drive that was then replaced with my newer SATA card for 2 drives so my computer probably has a nightmare tangled confusion of drivers on it).

The new OS drive is IDE. Power supply has not changed.

 

[Keebler Elf]

In summary; you unplugged the original IDE HD and plugged in the new one using the same cable and power connector, repartitioned (active) and reformatted it and then loaded the OS?

I totally unplugged all other drives except for IDE HD #2 (IDE HD #1 has the old OS). IDE HD #2 was already partitioned with one big and one small partition. The big partition has data on it and the small partition was empty (I always create a smaller partition for any potential future OS). The small partition was reformatted prior to installing the OS on it (both times).

I think the problem may have been that the audio/video is disabled in BIOS from my old OS install. So when I tried to do a fresh install, BIOS didn't detect any audio device (thus, no sound). Perhaps that fucked up all future attempts at installing the audio card (maybe you have to initially have mobo audio selected in BIOS and then switch it off when you're ready to install a new sound card).

 

[Keebler Elf]

I think I may have identified my lack of audio when I tried to reinstall Windows. My onboard audio controller is set to Disabled (vs. Auto) in BIOS. My audio works fine with my current Win XP install but that's probably b/c I have an audio PCI card.