Soundmax Integrated Problems

I'm hoping someone can help me - I've been having problems with my computer's audio for a few days now. Here's what happened. I was listening to a CD while working on an excel file, and there was a burst of static followed by silence. Windows Media Player continued to play the CD as if nothing had happened, but there was no longer any sound. I tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling and it seemed to fix it... except, that after about a minute of CD play, the same thing happened.

The next time I tried to reinstall the driver, it didn't fix the problem... now is static (pretty sharp) coming from the speakers, kind of randomly. Again, WMP will play sound files and CDs without saying there's an error, but there isn't any sound. Also, the device manager claims that the driver is working properly and that there are no hardware conflicts.

Here are my specs:

OS: Windows 2000 Pro
CPU: Pentium 4A, 1800 MHZ
Motherboard Name: Compaq Evo D510 CMT
Motherboard Chipset: Intel Brookdale-G i845 G
BIOS Type: Compaq (08/15/02)

I know the sound card is part of the board - and that SoundMax is the appropriate driver support... any advice would be very appreciated.

Welcome to windrivers flipnello. I hate to say it, but it sounds like you might have fried or shorted something. Try plugging in a set of headphones to both the rear and front (if applicable) headphone jacks to rule out the speakers. Assuming you still get no sound, its likely to be a hardware problem. Probably the easiest fix would be to but an add-in sound card and disable the onboard. Of course, if its still under warranty, have it repaired.

or it could be digital extraction misery... try turning off digital extraction for audio cds

How do I turn off digital extraction?

From device manager open properties for your cd drive. Select the properties tab. Deselect the check box for Digital CD Playback. You will need to have an audio cable running from the cd drive to the board (should have come w/ the computer).

Is your issue only w/ CD's or does it affect audio files (mp3's, wma's, etc.) as well?

When I went to turn off the digital function for the CD drive, it was already off.

All audio is lost, not just CD.

So, this morning, after a night of being powered down, I was surprised to hear the windows theme during startup. And then I was able to get about 1 min into a song before some sharp static and no more sound.

After the sound cut out, there was intermitent static bursts (I would call them)... By the way, when I occassionaly have gotten sound since this problem started, it's sounded fine while it's available.

Sounds like a hardware issue. Did you try headphones?

Does it play sounds when you first boot, then craps out.
If so- I would suspect a cooling problem - maybe a fan has died
my .02

Regarding the cooling problem theory: That may be, it would explain why this morning, after being off all night, it worked for about two minutes... how many fans are there and which ones would affect the on-board sound card?

Typical PC has 2 fans - one on CPU and one in the power supply. There can be others. The easiest way to find out is to open the PC (while turned off) then power it up and see whats happening. I suspect the CPU fan is not running, and so there is a build up of heat around cpu area. This could be causing the soundcard chip to be overheating. Power supply fan helps empty case of heat also. If the fans are working - then you need a new soundcard. You need to go into BIOS and disable onboard sound before installing new soundcard.
Order of events for new soundcard install:
1. Disable onboard sound in BIOS
2. Boot machine (let XP see sound is gone)
3. Shutdown and install new card
3. Boot up windows and install drivers for new card

Let us know what you find
HTH