While fixing a friends PC (Dell dimension 4300) it was found to be riddled with trojans/ keyloggers to the extent that it would not allow use of usb sticks, new programs, or the existing security to be updated. I format the HDD and reinstall winXP home using my disc and his own legal product key. I install all drivers and everything works but no sound and heres where it gets interesting. The PC came with Soundblaster audigy 2 (WDM) soundcard that apparently was built to only use Dell drivers. The Dell website only has updates for this and wanted the original driver for the patch to work. I couldn’t find the original drivers online anywhere but was lucky enough that my friend still had all the discs that came with the Dell so I installed the soundblaster drivers from the original disc and the PC finally found the soundcard. It still would not work and it couldn’t find the media controller but loading the integrated sound driver fixed that. But still no sound even though my Device Manager shows no warnings. I installed the update patch still nothing. I have tried connecting to soundcard and integrated while enabling and disabling integrated sound in BIOS and no configurations work. I’ll try wrapping this up by stating that there is an official Dell re-installation CD that friend gave me after I used a regular windows disc to install everything. Does anyone think the Dell CD is the key to unlocking the audio functionality since the blaster was made for Dell? Does anyone have any ideas or direction to solve this problem?
if that dell cd is the restore cd then use it. i've had issues with some dell's with their onboard sound not working til i used dell driver. also try uninstalling the soundcard in device manager then restart windows so it can find new hardware & load it's driver. did you do the windows updates as found sometimes it finds new hardware & load new driver?
Thanks for the reply. Have used dell driver for onboard sound. Doesnt work. Have tried with no luck. Yes that was one of the first things I did. None of the "normal" fixes worked so I will save his data again and set the machine up with the dell CD.
It is unlikely that the DELL Windows install disk will contain any other drivers unless it's an image recovery CD. When Dell provides an OS Installtion disk, they typically provide the drivers specific for that model separately. If you want to give my method a "whack", here goes: 1. Find the service tag from either the back of the unit or the BIOS 2. Verify the original (shipped) configuration from Dell support website using the service tag 3. Try the drivers provided from the Dell website based on your service tag number. If there is a mismatch between Dell's shipped configuration and what you appear to have, someone may have upgraded the machine somewhere along the way and you may need to take the sound card out for positive identification.
I have had hell with the sound hardware with dell dimension series hardware.. they don't seem to know which driver/hardware combination works. There are a couple of options to try. Installing the wrong driver from dell won't really do any damage (as long as you have the volume turned down on the speakers themselves because the wrong driver makes a hell of a screech) Install each one from the dell website in series.. when you find the one that works keep a backup copy... or hunt http://sound-drivers.org/ (that's what I do.. but I always use a different method to work out what the hardware is) .. or finally http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=gen I have found some which have the ess1938 sound hardware... but believe.. these dimension junkers can have about 5 different hardware revisions.. I think dell threw them together out of whatever they had hanging around. If everything else fails then look on the motherboard for a printed make and number.. then google that XD
Using the Dell install CD fixed the onboard sound issue. Using that disc + driver produced sound when using regular XP home + same driver=excessive beer consumption and hair pulling. The soundblaster card still would not work even though I installed drivers from original disc and updated them with the patch from Dell website. Thing is, with the PC power on, when you insert the speaker cable into proper jack there should be a bit of static noise and I get that testing the surround sound jacks but no noise on the regular "green" input. Device manager sees the card and reports it running properly, but no sound. I pulled the card out and gave up on it, calling it hardware failure. He's so happy to get his machine back he doesnt care. Thank you all for your input.
Ahhh.. for the future.. did you turn off the onboard sound hardware in the bios or by the jumper.. sometimes some motherboards will not run 2 soundcards at the same time... IRQ conflict.
Only switched BIOS...Did not assume this machine was old enough for jumper...I could be wrong though since I did not look in that direction. Friend said the card worked before, I didnt move any jumpers during my fixing/snooping so it didnt cross my mind. I might not be fluent with command line computing but have always been good with hardware/ windows issues and that is what has done my head in! I mean how hard should it be to re-install the original discs? I thought IRQ conflict would show error message somewhere in the GUI world of windows???
I had a similar issue with a dell TV tuner a while back. The only fix I could get to work was to get an ASUS driver for a card with the same chipset, and then modify the hardware ID to match the TV tuner. It is easy enough, and you might wanna try it so you can use that sound card yourself.
