How to tell if my sound card is listed in Device Manager?

Question

The sound on my computer suddenly stopped working. When I check Sounds and Audio Devices in the Control Panel, I get "No Audio Device" with everything grayed out. When I check the Device Manager under "Sound, video and game controllers" I see the following list:

• Audio Codecs
• Legacy Audio Drivers
• Legacy Video Capture Devices
• Media Control Devices
• MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device
• Standard Game Port
• Video Codecs

None of these looks like my sound card. Of course, my sound "card" is not really a sound card, it's integrated with the nVidia-nForce motherboard. I'm running Windows XP.

So is one of the above my sound device, or is the OS not detecting it? If the latter, how do I get it to detect it?

Solution 1

It seems like you're missing the driver for the actual sound card in there. My XP device manager lists everything you have, plus one additional one for my on-board sound.

Have you checked the BIOS to verify that it's enabled? Other than that, under the device manager "Action" menu there should be an option for "Scan For Hardware Changes".

Another option is to simply delete everything under the Sound, Video and game controllers and reboot to see if it gets found & drivers reinstalled.

Solution 2

Have you checked in BOIS and made sure that internal speaker is enabled in devices?
We had a problem that certain graphics cards, when installed, would disable the internal speaker resulting in no sound.

Comments

[fady]

do you see anything with a yellow question mark? That would signal a device driver is needed. Could you send us a screenshot, with everything expanded?