No Audio Device Installed; No audio, vidweo game controlers group

[Rincewindwiz]

Hi and thanks for looking

HP Dv9705ea. In a mess; History uncertain (belonged to daughters friend) and Ive been asked to fix it.
So reinstall Vista (Home Premium) SP2 x86 - no problem
Windows updates - no problem
But - no sound. Speaker icon has red cross and message No Audio Device Installed
Control Panel ->Sounds: Same message (Disabled and disconnected devices both ticked)
Device manager has no sounds device (not even an audio, video and game controllers group) even with show hidden devices)
I checked the HP website and there are two sets of audio drivers (Conextant and Raeltek)
Tried installing Conextant but they reported 'no hardware found'
Raeltek installed OK with no messages (so hopefully the PC has Raeltek audio hardware?)
But still no sound

So I am beginning to think I have a hardware problem? Is this likely?
Is simply replacing the sound card likely to fix it?
All thoughts welcome
KR
R

PS I ran SFC /scannow. Trying to open the log file CBS produced an audible beep (with the error message access denied) ! First sounds Ive heard the PC make!
SFC reports that it fixed a number of corrupt files so I rebooted

 

[Tk Desimon]

90% is an hardware problem...can you please tell me what happens when you connect the headphones into the jack?
if you can hear sounds there is a problem on integrated speakers...otherwise there is a problem with your audiocard...BUT download and burn a Linux UBUNTU LIVE distribution and launch it....try to play any sound...if works torough integrated speakers, you may have got wrong drivers for your windows installation.

:D

 

[Rincewindwiz]

Sorry should have said - headphones = no sound
Looks like hardware to me but will a replacement audio board fix it or is it mroe serious?
TFAI

 

[Tk Desimon]

Burn and Try wit Linux UBUNTU Live Distro...first...

than if it works perform a clone of your hard drive and perform a fresh clean installation of windows.

 

[Vistaar]

It is worrisome that SFC found corrupt files soon after reinstalling Vista, did it fix them all? I have Realtek and had no audio problems after restoring from a factory image. Are you able to access audio playback devices since installing Realtek drivers?

 

[Rincewindwiz]

SFC: I agree. I ran it a second time and it reports no errors
Factory Image: I do not have a factory image and HP are unwilling to supply one
Playback devices: There are still no audio devices and no audio, video, game controllers group in device manager.

I think I'll see if I can find a cheap audio board and see if that improves things

 

[erpster4]

looks like an onboard audio hardware malfuction problem (not a software driver problem).
I had this problem happen to an old HP Pavilion a6110n computer using M2N68-LA motherboard (Narra2) where the onboard realtek audio chip shorted out and no longer worked (thus the realtek hd audio device no longer appeared in the Sound, video and game controllers section of Device Manager of Vista), even if the onboard audio option was enabled in the BIOS.

I ended up putting in an old Creative Labs Ensoniq PCI128 sound card that I pulled from an old Dell Optiplex GX100 computer and inserted it into the HP a6110n desktop PC.

 

[erpster4]

a follow up - for my situation, it was the motherboard (faulty Realtek audio chip). replaced the M2N68-LA Narra2 board with an M2N68-LA Narra3 board in Dec. 2016; both of them use onboard Realtek ALC888S audio device and the Realtek audio has been working well on the Narra3 board. I no longer needed that old Creative PCI128 audio card since there were no 64bit drivers for it, so I removed that one.

for OP, the HP pavilion DV9705EA notebook PC uses a motherboard with either HP part nos. 459567-001 or 461068-001. replacing a laptop motherboard could be costly so it's probably better & cheaper to install a usb audio device