computer problems

[juldea]

I would like someone with more computer skills than I to come and make my computer make noise again.

I don't know if it's a driver problem, a codec problem, or what. But nothing will make noise. This has been a problem for over a month now. I have checked the obvious things (cables, volume on both the speakers and the computer.) Now it's in your hands. Or mine, with your direction.

Comments

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the "this computer is on" beep or the Windows .wav?

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

I mean does it make any type of boot up sound. Don't care about the source. If it does make some kind of sound that it is not hardware related. If it doesn't make any sound then I would be leaning towards a hardware problem (ie lose cable or card insie the pc.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It does make sound upon bootup. In fact, sometimes it'll even give me real actual all-things-playing sound for a little while. And then... something will fuck up and it'll stop. Programs will stop making noise and Winamp/media player/real/quicktime/etc will tell me that I'm not playing valid file types...

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

So at least we narrowed it down that it is not hardware. That's easy to fix. Just reinstall XP. *grin* Actually it does sound like an OS problem.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it's a driver problem, possibly something messed up when I tried to install some codecs I downloaded off of Kazaa... I wish I could pinpoint when it started happening but I can't. :P

[crolack.livejournal.com]

My guess is file corruption/fragmentation. Try using windows error checking (tell to scan on reboot then reboot) then run defrag.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It's not a file, though. It's any type of sound whatsoever. Mp3s, wavs, flash on websites, anything.

A long technical guide

[reyjadan.livejournal.com]

Okay, they've established the fact it's not hardware, so now we look at software. What you've described could be a few things: a Windows dll file is corrupted, the sound driver for your audio (btw, is it onboard or do you have a separate soundcard?) , or another (corrupted) driver has essentially told Windows it will handle sound processing.

Step 1:
Using the soundcard mfg/model number, go to mfg site and d/l latest driver pack. If mfg is no longer in existence or no longer supports drivers, goto driverguide.com to search for it. This assumes that your audio device is not integrated on the motherboard. If it is, goto the mobo mfg site and get their all-in-one drivers (or if it's nVidia, you can get the nForce drivers from them).

Step 2:
This is where it can get tricky b/c soundcards typically do more than sound, and sometimes the drivers don't always add all the right devices again. However, if this fails then it's a core XP problem and you'd have to be reinstalling anyway.
Go into your Device Manager (Hardware tab on the Systems dialog) and remove/unistall your sound device(s). Now, I think it would be good to reboot the system, but when it asks you for drivers, tell it to skip installation. If it automatically re-installs using drivers from the cab files; okay. In either event, after the reboot go ahead and run the install for your audio drivers that you d/l above. Guess what; time for another reboot. On this reboot the new drivers should be in effect.

If the problem persists, then there could still be another application, process, or service that is overriding the audio processing. So...

Step 3:
Use an in-depth process monitoring program (I recommend TaskInfo2002) to see what's running. Google the .exe filename of the running process if you don't know what it is. Make note and kill any suspect processes.

Step 4:
For any of the suspicious processes found above, goto Start->Run and type in 'msconfig' then go to the 'Startup' tab. Hopefully you'll find most (if not all) of the suspicious programs listed here. Those that are not are either a service or piggy-backing on a service. To modify services (while you can do so in msconfig), you should really go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services to make changes.

Step 5:
If none of this works (sigh), you'll need to do a reinstall of WinXP. I always recommend a clean install (wipe partition-delete partition-rebuild partition-reinstall OS) for any MS product because of all the networking and other odd errors that occur when simply re-installing over the old windows directory. It also gets rid of all those dead dll files and bad references within the OS.

However, if you do just re-install, sound should start working again. Be aware that while data is preserved on a re-install, the list of installed applications is not. In either case you'll be spending a while re-installing all of your frequently used applications. I maintain a separate OS partition that contains only Windows and Windows-associated apps so that I don't lose any critical data on a reformat.

Additionally, you may not know it but you can actually change where the My Documents folder located, as well as set any other Windows Environmental Variable/Pathname. For more info, Google it. :)

It's a lot, but I hope it helps.

Re: A long technical guide

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Oh, Randen. I wish you could just come over to my house and fix this for me. I miss you.