Please Help: No sound device or Audio Codecs

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garyb01

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Hello all! Been struggling with this problem for days now and I hope that someone here will be able to help because the frustration levels are quite high at the moment :( . I recently had to reload windows XP on the home desktop, a new installation formatting the hard drive because a horrible little virus had found its way into everything. After loading and registering, reloaded service pack 3 and all the other programs required, I noticed that the sound did not work. Thinking that it was a simple driver problem, I found the Motherboard drivers CD and loaded the Realtek drivers. Everything loaded fine, restarted but still no sound. Under Sound devices in Control panel it shows no sound device installed and no Audio codecs.

I have searched and Googled and have loaded every driver update I can find, have tried to identify the Motherboard to get the latest bios updates etc, but nothing is working. From what I can get when the system starts up the serial number of the Motherboard is P4M900-8237A-6A7L8006C-00, no names etc, cant find anything written on the board either.

Any advice or a point in the right direction would be highly appreciated!!

Thanks everyone.
 
First check in device manager if your sound card is even listed there.

You can use cpu-z to check what mother board you have.
 
Download Driver Detective this will also help. Otherwise just go out and buy a soundcard and load those drivers. It's possible the onboard sound chip has been damaged by the virus. It shouldn't cost you more than R150
 
This could also be caused by the "Unified HD Audio Driver" not being installed yet.

Check your motherboard CD or the internet for the driver (UUA) and install that. When its in, reboot your system and it should detect your audio device properly and get the driver in :)

This issue started in Service Pack 1, and most of the time when you install your audio drivers it will install the patch for you. However, from my experience, if it detects Service Pack 3, it thinks :

1) You already have it installed so no need to install it again
2) The issue is only for Service Pack 1/2 versions of XP (apparently fixed in SP3) but in my experience, it doesnt work like that.

Give it a bash and let us know if you still have problems ;)
 
My onboard sound went recently as well. I had to buy a new sound card. Costed about R450. Sound blaster audigy.
 
bex.cpt said:
Download Driver Detective this will also help. Otherwise just go out and buy a soundcard and load those drivers. It's possible the onboard sound chip has been damaged by the virus. It shouldn't cost you more than R150
Click to expand...

Can a virus damage hardware?
 
Qwikslver said:
First check in device manager if your sound card is even listed there.

You can use cpu-z to check what mother board you have.
Click to expand...

Nothing listed under device manager, not seeing anything at all. Have downloaded the CPU-Z program and will run it to see if I can identify the board. Thanks for info
 
cyberbob1979 said:
This could also be caused by the "Unified HD Audio Driver" not being installed yet.

Check your motherboard CD or the internet for the driver (UUA) and install that. When its in, reboot your system and it should detect your audio device properly and get the driver in :)

This issue started in Service Pack 1, and most of the time when you install your audio drivers it will install the patch for you. However, from my experience, if it detects Service Pack 3, it thinks :

1) You already have it installed so no need to install it again
2) The issue is only for Service Pack 1/2 versions of XP (apparently fixed in SP3) but in my experience, it doesnt work like that.

Give it a bash and let us know if you still have problems ;)
Click to expand...

All the "googling" I have done over the last three days has shown this to be quite a common problem with many forums etc discussing the same problem.

No fix seems to be evident yet, but will try the CPU-Z and see if the Motherboard manufacturer can be identified in order to download the BIOS drivers / updates. Have downloaded something similar but it could not identify the MB. Thank you for the advice, will keep the thread updated with what the fix / result is as soon as I have one......said with great hope and aspirations..... :o
 
Try this ...
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Download the XP High Def Decoder (Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003(32/64 bits) Driver only - Executable file) Ver 2.25

Note: P4M900 Board is probably a Biostar or VIA mother board. The audio driver would be the same any way for either of these - Realtek uses generic drivers, or "Unified HD Audio Driver" irrespective of the motherboard.
 
Last edited:
Dolby said:
Can a virus damage hardware?
Click to expand...

Possibly, in two scenarios: If it were to flash, corrupt or somehow compromise a flash/ROM module. OR if it were to somehow stress hardware to the point where it failed, e.g. read/write to disk permanently for years! But the short answer is no....
 
Have tried everything listed above, drivers and identification programs etc, still not working. No sound device listed, no audio codes etc. Looks like the only alternative will be to install a cheap sound card.

Quick question though, does anyone think that uninstalling SP3 and / or resetting the BIOS by removing the battery will work?
 
check in bios that, the onboard sound/ integrated peripherals is enabled.
 
auriga1000 said:
check in bios that, the onboard sound/ integrated peripherals is enabled.
Click to expand...

cyberbob1979 said:
Yeah, good point :rolleyes:

Check for something called "AC 97 Audio" or Integrated Audio in the bios - usually under Integrated Peripherals
Click to expand...

Have checked the BIOS, nothing about AC 97 Audio / Intergrated audio at all, anywhere (Checked all the sub menus as well) Removed the battery to reset the MB and booted up again. Now in Device Manager I have found "PCI Device" with a yellow exclamation mark on it. Tried to update the driver for this device by pointing it to the Realtek drivers I had already downloaded, but still wont work. The device cannot be identified other than "PCI DEVICE"
 
was about to suggest that!

garyb01 said:
Quick question though, does anyone think that uninstalling SP3 and / or resetting the BIOS by removing the battery will work?
Click to expand...

Have a few funnies recently - although not particularly sound - and it all narrows down to SP3!
try uninstalling that! then disable the sound in bios - then re-install sp3 & then enable sound in bios.
 
Solution Found!!

I now have sound and this is what I did to resolve the issue. Thought that I would detail it here so that if anyone has the same problem in the future then they will know how to get around it.

1-Uninstalled XP SP3
2-Went to Microsoft Support and Downloaded Hotfix UAA KB Article Number 888111 found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888111
3- Extracted the Hotfix to the PC, restarted.
4- Checked in ADD / REMOVE PROGRAMS to make sure that it was indeed listed there.
5- Loaded the Motherboard drivers from the CD (VIA HD Audio) and presto, it found the new hardware and the sound started playing.
6- Reloaded XP SP3 and all working well. :D
 
Thanks, but see, here's my problem - I installed XP with SP3 integrated. How do I go about that? I think my sound card may actually still be working but because of this issue, it ain't. I had this problem before, but way back, I could uninstall service packs, but now my PC is installed with the service packs by default. I did the same thing you did a few years ago, but I can't do the same thing now.
 
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