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HELP - I lost all sound after installing external hard drive.

19 years ago

I've read the other posts in the forum regarding lost sound and have tried the various things suggested but nothing has worked. The one thing I *didn't* try was updating my driver.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Melissa

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Comments (2)

cboy
19 years ago
Go to control panel and open System Icon -
Hardware Tab - Device Manager - Click the + Plus sign for Sounds.......... -
Right click Realtek AC 97 (Or whatever Sound you have) - Left click - Update Driver.
To update you will need the CD that came with your computer.

First right click your speaker Icon and open Volume control
and make sure your sound is not muted. Located on your lower right.
If you don't have a speaker Icon go to the Control Panel and check your sound.

Windows XP
See if your sound has been stopped in Services Under
Windows Audio.
Start - Control Panel - Open Administrative Tools - Open Component Services - Click Services (Local) and Scrowl down the list to Windows Audio to see if it says - Started. If stopped
Left click Windows Audio and click restart. -
Or
Right click Windows Audio - left click Properties - Left click Start

If still no sound next try this But be careful because your in the Registry and you can harm your computer. You should make a Registry Backup first.
Go to Start>Run, type in regedit and hit ok.
Navagate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound
"Beep" and "ExtendedSounds" should both be set to "yes" in order for the speakers to work.

Before changing the Registry you need to make a Backup.
You can download ERUNT and make a backup. This is best but
it has a feature named Optimize. Don't use it. After using
it, it took me 2 days to get my computer back to normal.
Start - Run Type regedit - My Computer should be highlighted
Go to File - Left top - Left click Export - The word Backup - Save. When time to use it don't go to were it's saved,
go back to regedit.
Start - Run - regedit - OK -
File - Import - Right click Backup - Left click Merge.
Anyway that's the way I do it.
randy_ca
19 years ago
Try updating the driver.
Right click My Computer/ Properties/ Hardware tab / Device Manager.
Under sound, video and game controllers, if you have VIA AC'97 Audio Controller (WDM) right click it and update drivers, the wizard will run. You can also look at properties on that same dropdown menu, it'll show you the device status.

Also check Services and make sure Windows Audio is set to Automatic.
start/ control panel/ performance and maintenance/ administrative tools/ services/ windows audio.

I've had best success restoring sound by uninstalling the VIA AC'97 Audio Controller (WDM, then rebooting and the add new hardware wizard will pop up automatically and reinstall the audio controller.

There is suppossed to be a Add Hardware Wizard to reinstall the audio controller, but I've never seen the See Also, if you have that you can click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Printers and Other Hardware. Under See Also, click Add Hardware, to reinstall after the uninstall.
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