No Sound In Window$ ME

[philipmcph]

OK - Win ME and WDM drivers... lets check a few symptoms.

Do the sound drivers install, show up in device manager but when you go to multimedia the playback and record devices are greyed out or not there?

If so, get the 95/98 VXD version of the drivers and install those.

You replaced the motherboard, but it almost sounds like you are using the same drivers as for the old motherboard - that may also be the problem.

If so post the motherboard make and model (and the old one for comparison) - lets go driver hunting for the RIGHT ac97 via drivers!

Edit: Duh - you mentioned the board on the first page - Here are the current drivers on via arena There are the 95/98 drivers - It can be a bit of fiddle getting unsigned drivers to work in ME... but often where ac97 wdms fail, the vxd's triumph.

P. S.
When via ac97 first came out one of the regulars here had to hack the inf to get it to install right.... lots of people downloaded that particular "custom" driver

I would love to have this hack. I don't. I have tried the drivers you mention. They didn't work either.

[confus-ed]

I would love to have this hack. I don't. I have tried the drivers you mention. They didn't work either.

We have applied any chipset patches too ? (before this?) ... there's also at least two versions of the sound driver dependant on 'southbridge' of the motherboard (did Noo google the 'right' one for you ? the one on the manufacturers site should be correct as opposed to 'take your best guess' on the VIA site) try using this ecs link ECS sound drivers (probably the one you had originally) but you need to install the damn thing correctly now that it thinks its using the WDM version !

Go update the driver via device manager & point it to the 98 directory (hopefully) contained in those drivers, don't try redecting it already thinks it has the right driver(it does but the WDM doesn't always work in ME), no doubt ME will whinge & moan about this, but after a re-tard I think it'll work ....

(the hacked .inf Noo talks about just changes the driver loction to this 98 style .vxd driver as opposed to a WDM (windows driver model) style driver, I think !)

[NooNoo]

Correct Confus-ed

Now philipmcph, you really need to give us a bit more feed back than it doesn't work. What doesn't, what if any are the errors, what does device manager report in both normal and safe mode? What does the multimedia applet in control panel show?

What was the previous board you had?

Have you looked at the files that have been installed and been through in safe mode and renamed them so windows can't just reinstall the wrong version again?

Have you checked in the registry to see what sound is showing up in the enum keys?

We can move forward as soon as you answer these questions.

[philipmcph]

Correct Confus-ed

Now philipmcph, you really need to give us a bit more feed back than it doesn't work. What doesn't, what if any are the errors, what does device manager report in both normal and safe mode? What does the multimedia applet in control panel show?

What was the previous board you had?

Have you looked at the files that have been installed and been through in safe mode and renamed them so windows can't just reinstall the wrong version again?

Have you checked in the registry to see what sound is showing up in the enum keys?

We can move forward as soon as you answer these questions.

To answer the above:

What doesn't: no sound at all
what if any are the errors: there are none
what does device manager report in both normal and safe mode?: Device manager says everything is OK.
What does the multimedia applet in control panel show? "No Playback Devices" " No Recording Devices".
What was the previous board you had? The previous board is an IBm (Or who ever they use) with an Intel chipset.
Have you checked in the registry to see what sound is showing up in the enum keys? The correct sound card is listed. ( I deleted the enum key and reinstalled all drivers at the time of installation of the motherboard)

[NooNoo]

OK the fact that you have devices installed correctly in device manager but nothing in the multimedia section tells me this is definitely a WDM driver snafu...

Try this please.

Boot to safe mode. Remove any and ALL devices to do with sound (yes including mp401 but just disable the wave device for a voice modem.) Shutdown, restart and immediately go into bios and disable the onboard sound. Make sure you check all the bios options, the legacy sound is often listed separately to the ac97. Some boards even have a jumper to disable the onboard sound. You need to get the onboard sound completely disabled.

Boot to normal mode see if it detects a new sound card, if it doesn't good. Boot to safe mode and track down and rename the files that the drivers installed.... especially the inf file. Check there are no backup copies sitting in any other directory.

Check the registry enum key for any pci sound devices, if they are there, delete just those devices.

Reboot to normal mode and make sure all is well. Unzip the VXD drivers to a directory that can easily be found - such as c:\sound. Shut down. Re enable the sound device(s) in bios. Boot to normal mode and direct windows to use the c:\sound directory.

Pray.

[philipmcph]

OK the fact that you have devices installed correctly in device manager but nothing in the multimedia section tells me this is definitely a WDM driver snafu...

Try this please.

Boot to safe mode. Remove any and ALL devices to do with sound (yes including mp401 but just disable the wave device for a voice modem.) Shutdown, restart and immediately go into bios and disable the onboard sound. Make sure you check all the bios options, the legacy sound is often listed separately to the ac97. Some boards even have a jumper to disable the onboard sound. You need to get the onboard sound completely disabled.

Boot to normal mode see if it detects a new sound card, if it doesn't good. Boot to safe mode and track down and rename the files that the drivers installed.... especially the inf file. Check there are no backup copies sitting in any other directory.

Check the registry enum key for any pci sound devices, if they are there, delete just those devices.

Reboot to normal mode and make sure all is well. Unzip the VXD drivers to a directory that can easily be found - such as c:\sound. Shut down. Re enable the sound device(s) in bios. Boot to normal mode and direct windows to use the c:\sound directory.

Pray.

Upon reboot it detects the MP401.

[NooNoo]

right and did you feed it the sound drivers?

Did you follow my instructions? or did you decide to take a short cut?