audio card stops working in windows xp

[PD]

i have a 3 yr old dell with a built in audio card. all of a sudden the audio stops working, and when I go to the control panel, it says no driver installed even though device manager says it is installed properly. i figured it got screwed up so i bought a new audio card- and this gives same error. has anyone had anything like this?

unfortunately somehow system restore was off so i cant do that.

before i reinstall windows, any ideas"?

[Reynolds]

Have you recently installed any webcam or anything with a built in mic, even temporarily? Sometimes they take over as the default input / output for audio.

[biozombie]

I'd fuck with the bios settings, enable/disable onboard audio, with a reboot or two in between, kind of force windows into reinstalling the driver.

[PD]

its not just no sound; device manager says it is all installed fine, just control panel says no audio device (and none selectable).

I didn't install any new hardware; very strange. again, this is not a driver issue, as i get same thing for on board and an add in turtle bay audio card i just bought

[boosterp]

Actually it is very likely that it is a driver error. For a plug in audio card to work you need to disable on board audio through BIOS. But, the initial problem with your on board audio is that you need to uninstall the device, the driver, then enable the device and install the newer version of the driver.

I have seen this issue several times with several major makers in both video and audio and this solution works.

[PD]

Actually it is very likely that it is a driver error. For a plug in audio card to work you need to disable on board audio through BIOS. But, the initial problem with your on board audio is that you need to uninstall the device, the driver, then enable the device and install the newer version of the driver.

I have seen this issue several times with several major makers in both video and audio and this solution works.

i did all of that.

it is more likely some system file got corrupted.

I gave in and re-installed windows, and all works fine.
(this time though i enabled restore)

[boosterp]

Man that sucks. The uninstall likely left some shit behind (registry wise) so when you reinstalled the drivers it was still faulty.

I hate that you had to do a complete OS install

[PD]

Man that sucks. The uninstall likely left some shit behind (registry wise) so when you reinstalled the drivers it was still faulty.

I hate that you had to do a complete OS install
it wasn't the worst thing to do on this machine;
I had just put in a 1 TB HD in mid august, split that into 3 drives, so only program files were on C:

I have to reformat/reinstall my HD on my work computer- that will be a bitch, esp since no one at work wants to hear about "down time"

I also suspect it wasn't the drivers so much as another corrupted file (like windows audio services, etc) since device manager said the drivers were installed properly