Sound card is recognized and installed but it doesnt work

[phoenix digital]

Hi there people.

This is my first topic. I would have like to help others, than wanting help, but this time Billy left me without a clue of what to do. I tried everything except formatting and reinstalling.

First of all, my system configuration is:

mobo: Intel D865 GBF
micro: Intel P4 2.40A GHz
512 Mb DDR RAM
HD 80Gb @ 7.6KRPM
plus CDR and CDRW
soundcard encore ENM232-S3D-CMBR (CMI8738 4CHI)

Now the sequence of what went on there... something that never happened to me with previous versions (98, 98SE and ME) and that is completely weird for me:

1) The systems was working quite fine, even both soundcards were working okay with not a single conflict. Until I wanted to install a CH Products Virtual Pilot Pro joystick. I installed the drivers (last ones downloaded from CH site)...

2) At that moment, both soundcards ceased to respond and went completely silent.

3) Then I installed last drivers obtained directly from Intel (for the sound card onboard), and from CMI and Encore for the PCI card...

4) I tried installing drivers:
a) From the add new hardware wizard.
b) From the device manager (update dirvers).
c) From the setup program provided by the manufacturer.
None of them had any effect, not a single difference. All of the procedures ended the same way:

- Windows XP recognizes both soundcards, reporting "this device is working properly" also "it is ready to be used"...

- But when I go to sounds in the control panel, the systems says "there is no sound device available"... everything is grayed and obviously no sound will be played at all.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I removed all drivers, I even removed the PCI card hoping some conflict between both cards would be te problem, but even with only the onboard soundcard the result is the same ("device is working ok" / "there is no device available")... this is what most confuses me. (How come the very same system can give so opposite answers for the very same device? How can a professional system be SO unconsistent?

I even tried deactivating onboard soundcard from the BIOS... no results.

I looked through the MS knowledge base, with no answer.

Microsoft technicians apparently can't give me an answer either.

Hopefully someone here had the same problem (I won't belive I am the only one in the whole world with this problem, since WinXP instead of a SO looks for me like a BOP -bunch of problems-) and managed to solve without formatting...



Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[HAVOC]

It sounds to me like you have either a IRQ or I/O conflict between your soundcards and your Joystick. IRQ - (Interupt Request) is basically a request from a hardware device to the CPU so it may perform a task.

All this started happening i'm assuming after you installed Joystick drivers and plugged in the joystick. Does this Joystick use USB or does it use Serial Ports?

I bet 2 of those 3 devices are trying to share the same IRQ. This will cause a conflict between the two and normally both will not respond.

HERE LET'S TRY THIS:
Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager
Then look through the device manager for those 3 devices, PCI soundcard, onboard sound and joystick. (RIGHT CLICK) on each device and select properties. Then click on the resources tab. Scroll down in the resources box and make a note of the IRQ number that the device is using. Do this for all the both sound and joystick. Are any of those using the same IRQ? Reply and we can go from there.

 

[phoenix digital]

Hi Havoc2K5!

Thanks for reply.

I understood, and already thought about that. But if so, why onboard sound device still doesn't work even though I PHISICALLY uninstalled the PCI card?

The PCI card is not there any more, I removed it phisically from the PC slot, uninstalled from device manager, and also uninstalled drivers from add/remove programs.

Then I deactivated onboard card, uninstalled it from device manager, uninstalled drivers from add/remove programs... the only thing I wasnt able to remove was the "inheritated?" audio device drivers...

WXP detects the card, installs all the drivers again (from it's original CD which worked at the beginning), reports installation successfully... no conflicts in device manager, and... from the control panel > audio setings... it still reports "no audio device present..."

Weird. Isn't it?

IMHO I think there is a complete mess up in the system register (wich I cannot revert because I disabled it to recover from some spyware few days ago, so I have no restoration points in the system...)



Thanks again...

Cheers,

 

[uggitt]

Have you tried re-installing xp. Maybe worth ago....

 

[phoenix digital]

Do you mean formating and reinstalling (start from scratch?)

Or you mean installing again over this one? The problem is that I have now SP2 thanks to windows update, if I reinstall I guess I'll loose every update... actually I think that if really HAVE to reinstall, I'll rather start from scratch and install windows ME, that never caused such problems (I have quite a few intalls on Win ME, and actually is safer than XP -it is vulnerable though- but not so vulnerable like this...

Or... even better... Slackware10... or Mandrake.



Cheers again!

 

[uggitt]

No, you want to reinstall over the top of your existing xp. this way you will not lose any of your data etc...

Have a look here on how to do it

http://www.rlrouse.com/windows-xp-repair-install.html

Hopefully this might resolve your problem.

ugg...

 

[phoenix digital]

Hi.

Well, it worked for me. I didn't want to make an installation "overlapping" the previous one, because I know Micro$oft uses to mess up the register when you do that.

Anyway I backed up EVERYthing, and made what you suggested.

As I thought it was not so clear and neat. When windows installed again apparently made a new register, and I lost mostly every shorcut, some of the installed programs (that were actually still there), and another minor things.

But I was able to reinstall drivers, and the soundcard is now working.

Anyway, I decided to format anyway, in order to really start with clean and as neat as M$ permits an installation. Now it is working, quite well.

I wrote 'quite' instead of 'perfectly' because now there is a problem between the PCI soundcard gameport and Windows XP. It does not want to see the hardware if I use the drivers provided by the manufacturer (CH Products), but It does see it 'quite' well if I use a default joystick (the model provided by Windows does not support the second POV... so I lost 4 buttons)...

There is a say (I believe its arrived to south america from spain)... "Siempre le faltan cinco para el peso." (Which translated would be something like 'It allways lacks five cents to reach one peso' or so)... and that seems to me quite applicable in this case.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Apokalipse]

maybe it was using drivers from a previous OS?

 

[phoenix digital]

Mmmm... nope.

I used the drivers downloaded directly from CH Products, made for XP among other OS's.