Vista Tutorial - No Audio Output Device Installed

HALLLPPP! Ok, so I mananaged to get my Old HP PSC 500 to work on my HP Pavillion a6030n with VISTA... gave up on the scanning part totally. Bought and installed a new I/O card to do this and tinkered for days!

NOW, I realize I have NO SOUND... searched all of the threads and experimented with various and sundry but to no avail. The speakers were old JBL PROs had been working... changed them out for some old BOSTON speakers (also working on old Gateway) still getting the "No Audio Output Device Installed" and don't even get a "Sound and Video" portion in Device Manager!

Tried downloading Realtek AC97-Audio-Codec-driver-A397 as it was mentioned as a fix in another thread. No joy! Will installing another driver help this? I can't see why the card would be damaged as the previous install didn't go near it.

I am not a total novice but small words would be helpful as my brainmatter is fried and not a lot of hair left on the head.
KateNY

Hi kate welcome to the forums, can you tell me if you have any devices in the device manager with a "?" on them? if you do, can you take a snip of them?

Ok just went into DM and no "?" ...I do have an ! in a yellow triangle on the WAN Miniport (SSTP) network adaptor which says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)
Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available." I thought that was in conjunction with my new cable internet system and I'm terrified to mess around with that!

Actually the order jumps right past "Sound and Vid" goes from Ports, Processors to Storage Control.

Hello Kate.

At firtst it sounded like a driver issue, which means you would need to get the proper driver...

However, since you don't see any device , it means either :

1. the sound card device is accidentally disabled in the BIOS (press F1/F2/F10/DEL key at computer startup to enter BIOS, the key depends on the manufacturer). Look for Onboard Audio->enable/disable.

2. The new I/O card you installed is conflicting with the sound card I/O. Try removing the PCI card and see if the sound card reappears. If it does, install the PCI card in a different PCI slot.

3. Some other hardware installation is conflicting with your sound card I/O settings. Try removing any external cards or new devices from your system and see if your sound card appears again in Device Manager, with yellow mark or now.

4. Another installation has messed up with your Windows Registry and I/O settings, download ccleaner , clean up your pc and registry and see if it helps.

5. In device manager, expand System Devices and look there for questionmarks/exclamation marks too. Try uninstalling the devices PCI DEVICE and OTHER PCI BRIDGE DEVICE if they appear with yellow marks.

Note: Don't worry about WAN Miniport (SSTP)..it's normal.

Thanks I will print this out now... because once I take out the I/O card it may be anybody's guess if I'll get the printer working again. I've been trying to catalog everything I'm doing so I can UNdo it... I've worked with phone/vmail systems for 23 years but tinkering with this scares the you know what out of me.

I will definitely repost after I've tried all of this.
kateNY

LIMNEOS YOU ROCK!!! Ok here's what I did out of your instructions (so if there are any other frustrated newbies out there listen up!)
I did a restart and pressed F10 to get into setup as instructed
On this setup it's called "Audio Codec" HP Pavillion a3060n PC
I entered this (it was on "auto") and changed it to "Enabled"
Once I did an Exit and Save... I went to Device Manager and lo and behold..
the Sound, Video and Game Controllers came back!!

I clicked on the sub-set Realtech High Def Audio and the details told me that it was a corrupted file... then did a search on line for solutions (via the panel)...separate searches/downloads never worked ....and when it located and downloaded the correct file/program MY SOUND ICON CAME UP WITH NO Xs!!!
Don't have to reinstall that I/O card (whew) so printer is still working.
TOTALLY HAPPY CAMPER HERE! thankyouthankyouthankyou!

KateNY

the question still remains how you managed to disable the onboard audio without even knowing

That's what we're here for, Kate.

I'm really glad you've sorted this out.

See you around

She didn't disable it, it was always on "auto". The I/O card probably conflicts with the audio card, so she has to force-enable it in order to work and get new IRQs

Have no idea How I disabled it... maybe while putting the card in... I only discovered it not working after that time period so I may continue to keep a log ANY time I do anything with this computer AND that's why I'm so glad that there are guys like you around who can keep a girl sane! I really appreciate the help
kateNY