Sound Problem

[LOUD]

I have a serious problem with my sound card at home.

Some how the driver got corrupted and i have no sound on my computer.

Within Device manager i see the yellow mark beside Multimedia Audio Controller. I have all the motherboard discs and have tried to install the Driver again. But when i do my machine crashes and restarts. This process loops until i go into safemode and disable the driver.

My motherboard is MSI 915P Combo2. (Intel 915p Express Chipset based)
The driver i am installing is Realtek AC 97. I downloaded the driver even from realtek site. Still no luck. I have tried different types of drivers C-media, etc but no luck.

I know a easy solution is to buy a separate sound card but i would like to try and get the onboard sound card working for the time being.

Windows XP SP2 is my operating System

[Ryan]

Out of interest, did this just happen recently? My home PC recently got a pile of Windows Updates from over the course of a few weeks/months (naughty i know), and it threw my sound card off. Over the last few boots it's needed fresh re-install of the drivers. Very weird. Seemed ok last night, gf was on and playing moozics.

SB Live! on XP Pro SP2

[LOUD]

funny you mention Microsoft Update.

I was thinking along the same line. I hadn't installed any new software in a while.

[Domino]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and reinstalling the driver?

[LOUD]

yeah no joy.

[PeterW]

Have you got a spare HDD you can hook up and do a clean Windows install to confirm the hardware is ok?

[LOUD]

i did that too. Took 80gig harddrive home from work. Reinstalled windows and Still no joy.

Is there anywhere i can check the driver for the motherboard. Reason why i ask is beacuse there are a number of different types of drivers for audio on the disc.

What would cause the machine to crash and loop when installing a driver.

[farmerste]

we have some intel d915 motherboatds here, and they are prone to the sound going off for no reason, the only thing i can thing of is some power saving settings, either software based, or built into the sound chip itself.
it seems to be worse when the sound out is going to an amp, or other sound device like a smartboard 2000i
flashing the bios seems to work, but i'm sure it is still something to do with built in power saving on the chip

[bizzel]

You could try disabling the "Allow windows to turn off this device to save power" option from device manager if it's enabled.

[PeterW]

There are two versions of that board one has the ADI 1888 codec and the other is Realtek ALC655, are you able to look at the board and confirm it is the Realtek one you have?

[LOUD]

will look at that when i get home. I couldn't see any labels the last time i checked.

[LOUD]

i do think i have tried to install those drivers with no success.

[Ryan]

Well i'll be God damned. After mentioning my earlier sound problem, it's just happened here on my work PC! All looks fine in Device Mgr, but trying to play stuff doesn't work. Winamp complains of "Bad DirectSound driver". Bizarre!

Oh, and apologies if this constitutes a hijack.

[PeterW]

Sounds like windows update, had this with the Realtek HD Audio on a work machine recently. You could try rolling back the driver.

[Ryan]

Nothing to roll back to. Ended up just uninstalling the driver from Driver tab in Device Mgr then letting it re-find the driver. Did the trick. Annoying though.

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