Lost sound on my XP machine

[mopepom]

My XP desktop has lost its sound capability recently. I suspect that I made some changes to the driver environment, without knowing what I was doing.

This happened to me before some years ago and I had the dickens of a time getting it fixed. I remember vaguely that the problem had to do with a corrupt BIOS. The fix was easy - load the correct BIOS from the CD provided with the machine.

Of course, now I cant locate that CD!

I need help to fix the problem, without having the CD that came with the machine.

I just ran Belarc Advisor to see what I was using.

This is the relevant piece of data from Belarc:

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P4S533MX REV 1.xx
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software, Inc. ASUS P4S533-MX ACPI BIOS Revision 1006 06/11/2003

Can anyone on this forum advise me on how to proceed. I hope that I can download a good driver for this BIOS and re-install it.

I am concerned that if I change what I have, the machine will stop working all together. I can get by without the sound right now, but cant get any A/V stuff.

I look forward to your suggestions.

Many Thanks

[Platypus]

A corrupt BIOS seems to be a fairly unlikely cause merely for loss of sound. It may well be that flashing the BIOS reset all the parameters, and doing a CMOS reset would have had the same effect. But anyway, does the Device Manager show any ! against sound devices?

Drivers for the board can be found here:

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...33-MX&p=1&s=15

Assuming the on-board sound is being used, check in the BIOS setup and make sure the on-board audio hasn't been turned off. If it's a sound card, what card is it?

[mopepom]

"does the Device Manager show any ! against sound devices?"

No - there was no ! against sound devices in the Device Manager.

There were three yellow question marks against OTHER DEVICES, MULTIMEDIA AUDIO CONTROLLER and VIDEO CONTROLLER (VGA COMPATIBLE)

[mopepom]

"Drivers for the board can be found here:

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...33-MX&p=1&s=15

Assuming the on-board sound is being used, check in the BIOS setup and make sure the on-board audio hasn't been turned off. If it's a sound card, what card is it? "

I have downloaded the PDF file "P4S533-MX User Manual (English) E1221", to see if I could actually try to update the BIOS. Based on a quick overview, I conclude that it is far too dangerous for me to try this, in view of my ignorance.

I did get into the BIOS setup sequence, prior to XP booting up and confirmed that there were no obviously wrong settings for the various parameters. But I am out of my depth here too.

I can't figure out if I should be using a sound board.

I think I need to do some more investigation at the XP Control Panel level. But then again, I don't know what to look for.

Who said "When ignorance is bliss, t'is folly to be wise" ?

I am more inclined to the notion that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Any suggestions on how to proceed, without messing with the BIOS?

Many Thanks.

[Platypus]

If the computer is using the on-board video and sound, I'd first try downloading & installing the most recent of the Audio and VGA drivers.

If either a sound card or video card is fitted, we'll need to find out what they are and locate suitable drivers for them.

Does Belarc give any report on the audio and video discovered in the system? My past experience of the utility was that it depended a lot on stuff being installed correctly in Windows. Two alternative diagnostic utilities to try are SIW (System Information for Windows) or Speccy, another way is to post the Hardware IDs for the faulted devices (in Device manager right click the device, select Properties & on the Details tab choose Hardware IDs from the Property list) & we can confirm manufacturer & device.

[mopepom]

"Two alternative diagnostic utilities to try are SIW (System Information for Windows) or Speccy"

Thanks for this. I have installed both. Speccy is crashing on my machine. SIW looks very comprehensive. I have generated a large HTML report from SIW that seems to give complete details of my machine, h/w & s/w configurations.

I am reluctant to post this report, since it lays bare the innards of my machine for anyone interested.

Can you suggest which pages to extract and clip to this forum, or to forward to you by private e-mail?

BTW, since I started this dialog with you, I have purchased a program called Hardware Helper. I did a scan of my drivers and attempted to update the out-of-date drivers. This got rid of the yellow question marks, that I mentioned in an earlier post to you. But still no sound.
I think I now have access to the diagnostic tools needed to answer specific questions from you. This may take some to-and-fro messaging, but I have the time, if you have.

Many thanks, from Ontario, Canada.