Why sound stopped working after reformatting my computer?

[NathanBZ]

Hi! all. I have just recently formatted my computer (HP Compaq nx9110). Everything runs OK but I have NO sound. Everytime try to play something in Windows Media Player I get: Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem with your sound device. There may not be a sound device installed on your computer, it may be in use by another program, or it may not be functioning properly.

I don't know what happend. When I go into control panel and click sounds and audio devices I can not change any of the settings because the colors are greyed out. It also says no audio device under the volume panel. I had sound before so I don't know what could have happend.

I ran the D-A-L hardware scan and the motherboard model is 089C (v31.36). BIOS model: F.25. The computer is running XP Professional SP2.

Please help me get the sound back. Thanks in advance.

[sicarie]

I'm not familiar with D-A-L hardware scan. Is that aftermarket?

I'm a fan of the line of computers, and would like to know if you have the OS and driver disk from when you purchased the computer.

If not, have you looked for the driver on HP's site? When you right-click My Computer and select Manage, click Device Manager, and show all the Sound, video, and game controllers, what does it list there?

[NathanBZ]

thanks for the reply sicarie.

i ran the DAL scan to get the specifications to my machine because i figured it'd help to give people an idea of the machine i am using.

anyways, i went to the Device manager, and everything seems perfect under sound, video and game controllers. But everything under Other Devices has a yellow question mark,so i suspect it might have something to do with this problem, but i'm not sure.

I don't have the driver disk with me.

[sicarie]

Try loading the audio driver from hp's download page and following the 'Installation Instructions' tab.

Did that help?

[NathanBZ]

Thank you once again sicarie. I tried down loading that audio diver before posting this question. Installation didn't complete becaus ei got an error,

CRC error: The file C:/Windows/system32/CleanUp.exe doesn't match the file in the setup's .cab file. The medium from which you are running setup maybe corrupted; contact your software vendor

I followed the path to system32 but didn't see the CleanUp.exe. i wonder if it's a hidden file or it doesn't exist at all. I don't know if the problem here is the sound card. I read somewhere that when you upgrade your OS, some older cards may give you a problem. But my card is an on-board card, so i wonder how to tackle the problem.

[sicarie]

I think you need to determine the specific card and then go to the maker of the card.

I think when you reformatted you wiped out the tools HP's driver used to help upgrade, and that is what the installer is complaining about.

When you right-click My Computer, select Manage and then go to Device Manager, what does it list under 'Sound Video and game controllers' specifically?

[NathanBZ]

Under 'Sound Video and game controllers' i get:

Audio Codecs
Gameport for CH Products Gamecard 3
Legacy Audio Drivers
Legacy Video Capture Devices
Media Control Devices
Video Codecs

[sicarie]

Somewhere in there is the ype of driver. You'll either have to find it, track down the driver and install it, or figure out if the driver page I posted links to the full re-image CD so you can get the HP-supported image on there.

At this point you need to do some legwork on your own. Good luck!