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This is DRIVING me crazy (HA, PUN!)
X3x3non
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Original post
Update: So I found my Vista DVD again and I decided just to reinstall windows to hopefully untangle the drivers. Do I have to do a complete wipe of the hard drive or can I just install over the old vista installation? I would like to save myself the trouble of having to completely reinstall everything especially since it won't necessarily solve my problem since I don't know for sure that it is soft ware related. I haven't had to reinstall an OS since like Windows 98.
I have an external hard drive. could i sort of just mirror everything except the windows folder on there and then put it back on the freshly formatted hard drive?
I have a weird driver issue. The other day I was just browsing the web when all of the sudden everything froze up. Ok no problem, happens every once in a blue moon on Vista (32bit). I restart but upon booting up I can only bring up the start menu before everything grinds to a halt again. Ok... getting weird. I restart again and my computer gets stuck in a boot-restart cycle. Basically once the system loaded the Vista loading screen with the green loading bar it would just sit there for several minutes with no apparent hard drive activity. The hard drive was then acting skittish for a while; when I booted with an XP CD I was told there was no hard drive installed at all! Ok, so I was thinking FUUUUCK hard drive is breaking better back everything up. I bust out a recovery disk and do an error check, apparently some things were fixed and VOILA Vista will boot up again just fine and has many times now so the hard drive is apparently fine (it has done nothing weird so far).
Anyways the bullshit starts here. My sound doesn't work anymore, plain and simple. The sound card in question is a Sigmatel 9250 (onboard sound).
This is not the "muted" icon.
Evidence I have gathered.
- The card shows up in the BIOS though I think it may be hardwired to show up since its a custom Dell BIOS.
- In dxdiag no sound shows up.
- In the device manager it says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"
- Neither the default Vista nor the shipped Dell drivers restore sound. Hardware problem?...
- Ready for a mind fuck? When I boot the Dell diagnostics disk and run the sound utility my speakers manage to produce sound just fine! It plays a little low quality song from the right and left speakers. Until now I had thought my sound card got fried, but apparently it is still intact.
Further more some other random devices aren't working like the bluetooth peripheral device and webcam (again drivers won't install properly).
Laptop Specs:
Dell Inspiron 1720
Sigmatel 9250 sound card
Intel T7250
2 gB RAM
8600GT
Vista 32 Bit
What gives guys? I am at a loss and don't know where to go from here.
Anyways the bullshit starts here. My sound doesn't work anymore, plain and simple. The sound card in question is a Sigmatel 9250 (onboard sound).
This is not the "muted" icon.
Evidence I have gathered.
- The card shows up in the BIOS though I think it may be hardwired to show up since its a custom Dell BIOS.
- In dxdiag no sound shows up.
- In the device manager it says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"
- Neither the default Vista nor the shipped Dell drivers restore sound. Hardware problem?...
- Ready for a mind fuck? When I boot the Dell diagnostics disk and run the sound utility my speakers manage to produce sound just fine! It plays a little low quality song from the right and left speakers. Until now I had thought my sound card got fried, but apparently it is still intact.
Further more some other random devices aren't working like the bluetooth peripheral device and webcam (again drivers won't install properly).
Laptop Specs:
Dell Inspiron 1720
Sigmatel 9250 sound card
Intel T7250
2 gB RAM
8600GT
Vista 32 Bit
What gives guys? I am at a loss and don't know where to go from here.
Update: So I found my Vista DVD again and I decided just to reinstall windows to hopefully untangle the drivers. Do I have to do a complete wipe of the hard drive or can I just install over the old vista installation? I would like to save myself the trouble of having to completely reinstall everything especially since it won't necessarily solve my problem since I don't know for sure that it is soft ware related. I haven't had to reinstall an OS since like Windows 98.
I have an external hard drive. could i sort of just mirror everything except the windows folder on there and then put it back on the freshly formatted hard drive?
X3x3non on
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Posts
SP1 broke compatibility with certain SigmaTel sound cards. Even worse around the time this happened they decided to stop making new drivers. Also the company that they passed their product on to will not support the old hardware. You can search Dell or specific laptop forums for a driver that will kinda work with SP1. For example, I have sound, but my mic does not work.
How's that for a curveball?
Update: So I found my Vista DVD again and I decided just to reinstall windows to hopefully untangle the drivers. Do I have to do a complete wipe of the hard drive or can I just install over the old vista installation? I would like to save myself the trouble of having to completely reinstall everything especially since it won't necessarily solve my problem since I don't know for sure that it is soft ware related. I haven't had to reinstall an OS since like Windows 98.
I have an external hard drive. could i sort of just mirror everything except the windows folder on there and then put it back on the freshly formatted hard drive?