PC help for the old and crazy...

[Nottso]

My PC had a complete meltdown. It did all manner of craziness and then said "Primary Master Drive Fails." Luckily I had everything backed up to a second partition on that drive, so all I had to do was install a new HDD, reinstall XP, boot it up and recover all my stuff from the old drive's second partition. I now also have an external HDD in play.

My problem is that I now have no sound, other than at post it talks to me ("System completed power on self test; computer now booting from operating system"). No system sounds other than that and no mp3's, streaming audio, CD playback,or anything else. The mobo is an ASUS A7-V333-X with onboard sound. All jumpers are correct and the driver is the latest and is properly installed to the very best of my knowledge. I've had this in the past and it was some simple setting, but I can't remember what. Old age blows.

I've gone through "Media Mixer" numerous times and all seems well there. I have it set to 2 speakers, as I have the old Cambridge Digital Desktop 5.1 and that is how it's supposed to be set and always has been. I've gone through "Sounds and Audio Devices" in Control panel and all seems correct. I know this thing is a dinosaur, but it was a killer when I built it (10 or 12 years ago?) and I can't afford to build anything better at this time.

Do any of you tech-savvy folks have the answer, or suggestions as to where I might look? I really like my tunes and stuff and this is making me crazy(er).

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[Baldkin]

My suggestions would include:

 

Are there internal cables that need to be hooked from the mobo to the speaker plugins? Are the speakers plugged into the correct slot? (My Dad always manages to plug his speakers into the microphone port)

 

For XP settings, go into device manager, and make sure that there is a listing under Sound/Video Game Controllers.

[Nottso]

Cables are correct, and device manager shows all devices working properly. It's really making me nuts.

[logan82]

It's really making me nuts.

Making you nuts or just pushing you down the road to nuts faster?

[Nottso]

Yes.

[nate82]

You might have to update the drivers the drivers may not have copied over correctly or they may have gotten corrupted. Try downloading from the asus website select WinXP then select audio then click on globaldl or global install drivers and then it should ask you to restart your PC. Sound should work after that. If it doesn't you will have to go through the control panel and uninstall the sound card and then reinstall the drivers you just downloaded.

[Nottso]

It freaked out on me again last night. Wouldn't boot from either internal HDD or the external HDD. I managed to save it via "recovery console" off of the system disk but it was a chore. At this point my only guess is that the mobo is dying a slow death.

 

I found a new-in-box Asus A7-V400 mobo for real cheap so I ordered it. It appears to be the same board except it has onboard video and LAN. If the onboard video doesn't perform well, I have a couple of high-end (for this old stuff) video cards on hand, so hopefully I can patch it together and keep it running for another year or 2.

 

What's really sad is that I have a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum sound card somewhere but can't find it.

[Nottso]

I fixed it. I still can't find my teeth and I may have soiled myself, but at least I have tunes.