How to get my speaker working again

Maura74

I have nearly got my old pc back working except for my sound all seems to be connect but no sound I have updated the drives but nothing, can anyone help please. I am running windows XP my pc is dell XPS 210.

Torqay

Maura74 wrote: »

II have updated the drives but nothing, can anyone help please.

Everything looks good in the device manger? No yellow triangles?

Maura74

Torqay wrote: »

Everything looks good in the device manger? No yellow triangles?

Torqay everything looks fine there, I have even updated drives form there, but nothing happens no sound.

Torqay

Control Panel > Sound and Audio Devices > Audio tab: is the soundcard (Sigmatel?) set as default playback device?

Maura74

Torqay wrote: »

Control Panel > Sound and Audio Devices > Audio tab: is the soundcard (Sigmatel?) set as default playback device?

Many thanks Torqay, they are working OK now.:D

Torqay

You're more than welcome.

Windows has a habit to acquire USB headsets as the "default device" when you connect them.

Maura74

Thanks for help, I have another problem, when I was doing a scan today with Kaspersky anti virus and it showed that I had 140,000 files. When I went into explore form the start menu I did not a lot of files. How do I know which one I should delete, I expect there is a lot of duplications. I there an easy way of know if they are duplications or not.

Torqay

Don't even think about it, many duplicates are there for a reason.

Maura74

Another problem, I cannot get my external hard drive using USB to connect to my PC there is a yellow question mark on the usb when I go into the device manager. I have updated the drives from device manager but no joy the yellow question mark is still on the USB that I have plugged the external hard drive into. It will take a memory stick but not an external hard drive. Any help on this one please. I do not have much space on the internal hard drive and not sure if I can upgrade my internal hard drive with my mother board on my computer.

Any help guys would be graetly appreciated.

Torqay

Remove all USB controllers from the device manager and restart (worry not, the drivers will be automatically reinstalled), then try again.

Maura74

Torqay wrote: »

Remove all USB controllers from the device manager and restart (worry not, the drivers will be automatically reinstalled), then try again.

Did as you suggested Torqay, but did not work, I think the cause maybe because the internal hard drive is only 250GB and the external hard drive is bigger and that maybe the cause. It accepts my memory stick which is a 16GB without any problmes.

yoyo

Maura74 wrote: »

Did as you suggested Torqay, but did not work, I think the cause maybe because the internal hard drive is only 250GB and the external hard drive is bigger and that maybe the cause. It accepts my memory stick which is a 16GB without any problmes.

Does the drive work in other computers? Also it could simply be what is called a drive naming conflict. To diagnose this plug the drive in, click start, right click on "My Computer">Manage>Disk Management, locate the external drive and right click on it, change drive letter to something unused, like F:, K:, etc. See if it helps. The external HD being bigger is not an issue, many people will use a low capacity high speed SSD for OS, and bigger disk ones for storage

Nick

Maura74

Nick, I did as you suggested, but the drive does not show up there, but when I have my memory stick there it show up but not the external hard drive. I have the external hard drive on my laptop and it works OK. Also when I insert the USB from the drive it lights up, I cannot understand why it does not show up when I go into the C drive. When I go into the device manager it has a yellow question make on the ubs mass storage device and when I right click on it to see the properties it says that the drives needs to be reinstalled Code 18. I have click onthe reinstalled tab the update wizard says that it could not find a better match for my hardware than the software that I have currently installed.

It gives me 2 option:

To keep the current software and click finish
To search again in another location and click back

I have tried the second option and it the same message keeps coming up.

I have got another external hard drive I will try that later to see if I have the same problems with it on my PC.

yoyo

Maura74 wrote: »

Nick, I did as you suggested, but the drive does not show up there, but when I have my memory stick there it show up but not the external hard drive. I have the external hard drive on my laptop and it works OK. Also when I insert the USB from the drive it lights up, I cannot understand why it does not show up when I go into the C drive. When I go into the device manager it has a yellow question make on the ubs mass storage device and when I right click on it to see the properties it says that the drives needs to be reinstalled Code 18. I have click onthe reinstalled tab the update wizard says that it could not find a better match for my hardware than the software that I have currently installed.

It gives me 2 option:

To keep the current software and click finish
To search again in another location and click back

I have tried the second option and it the same message keeps coming up.

I have got another external hard drive I will try that later to see if I have the same problems with it on my PC.

Try right clicking on the unknown drive in device manager, and uninstall it, restart the computer and see if Windows picks it up ok. Make sure if its a portable drive (Ie not plugged into wall for power) that its getting adequate power, I.e: Both USB connectors are plugged in to the machine

Nick

Maura74

I did as you suggested Nick and made some progress as it show up in my computer alongside my C drive but I cannot access it, like I can with my memory stick.
If the photo link works then you will see what I mean. ….


http://s1159.photobucket.com/albums/p632/mairead70/

yoyo

Maura74 wrote: »

I did as you suggested Nick and made some progress as it show up in my computer alongside my C drive but I cannot access it, like I can with my memory stick.
If the photo link works then you will see what I mean. ….


http://s1159.photobucket.com/albums/p632/mairead70/

OK, so it looks like Windows is detecting the drive ok, now it could be a letter conflict, so repeat the above again and see what happens

Nick

Maura74

Hi Nick, it is also picking it up in the device manager and there are no yellow marks on the USB root hud like the one was uninstalled.

I have turned off the computer and taken out the hard drive from the USB socket and turned back ont he computer again and inserted the hard drive, but I do not seem to be able to get access to the drive when I open up the c drive without going into properties and then I can only see it there, is there any way I can access it. Many thanks for your help.

yoyo

Maura74 wrote: »

Hi Nick, it is also picking it up in the device manager and there are no yellow marks on the USB root hud like the one was uninstalled.

I have turned off the computer and taken out the hard drive from the USB socket and turned back ont he computer again and inserted the hard drive, but I do not seem to be able to get access to the drive when I open up the c drive without going into properties and then I can only see it there, is there any way I can access it. Many thanks for your help.

Use this guide and see if it helps (if its a drive letter conflict it should )

Nick

Maura74

Many thank, I will have a look at it tomorrow and let you know how I get on...

Maura74

Hi have not been able to get to my PC until now, I have tried to assign a letter to my external Hard drive in Computer Management and under Disk Management, the first column in the disk management, under Volume (C:) and then under Layout it say Partition and under Type it say Basic and then under File System it says NTFS and then under Status it says Healthy System.

The external hard drive has the same but for File system it says FAT32 and healthy active.

When it assign the letter to the external drive it seems OK but when I turn off computer it is the letter is not there and I cannot access the external hard drive.

Hope this make sense and any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

yoyo

I've no idea tbh. It appears as though XP is loosing device info on reboot. Have you done any Windows updates in a while?

Nick