You have a virus it's using your audio device. to get your audio back short term, goto cotrolpanel/speech and audio devices/sound and audio devices/, if the page is grayed out this is why no audio. select the hardware tab and Dblcik the audio device "97""crystal" whatever your machine uses,goto the properties tab dblclik each item and disable then enable them and restart your computer

Legacy Audio Drivers
Audio Codecs
Media Control Devices
Legacy Video Capture Devices
Video Codecs

.

this shows that the drivers for the sound device are not installed .

Im getting a computer to fix tomorrow with this problem ,maybe I will find out what is the cause

Look forward to learning your findings, Caperjack.

I've read all the posts and I'm beginning to understand things a bit better.
I've solved the problem of the Windows Audio turning itself off, and I do have sound on one old program called Cubasis.
Another program, Harmony, won't function because it says "Impossible to initialise digital output ... this device is in use .. wait until it is free.." But at the time, it is the only show in town.
Nor can I get Real Player to work: there's a General Error message but it doesn't go into detail.
I've got C Media software on the system, but I actually have a SB16 sound card. So I've disabled C Media and plan to uninstall SB16 once I've found the updated SB drivers online.

I fixed it, I think.

This could maybe be useful to one or two others. I was just fiddling in XP Help, got on to Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel, went to - Sounds and Audio Devices Properties and looked at my default devices.
I'd been hearing only Midi OK.
Sound playback was set to:
Modem #0 Line Playback
Sound recording was set to:
Modem #0 Line Record
These were giving me no sound. I needed SB16 as my default and when I'd done it, hey presto, all these things came good. Sound is restored!
I'd be interested to receive any comments.

RussellXPD

the one im going to look at again soon has all that grayed out and i cant make any changes there ,i all ready disabled the on board sound and put a pci sound blaster 16 in and there was no change ,

One consistent thing about my system when I had the no sound problem was that in Device Manager, all of the Sound sub-entries stated This device is working properly Were all of yours working properly while it was grayed out?

Incidentally I still have a problem - that the sound is tinny, echoey, not right.
The next thing I have to do is find out how to disable on-board sound (in XP). Shouldn't be too difficult, could you give me a hint?

RussellXPD

disabling on board sound usually is done in the BIOS or mabe in device manager ,but most likely best done in the bios/setup on bootup, look for onboard devices ,where that at in the bios depends on the bios maker .usually in peripheral devices

Hi!

This is my first post to this forum! I tried what was suggested to get my sound back, however, once I got to the 'Services' window pop up, then I 'right clicked' and selected 'Properties', then made sure that under 'Startu up Type' that 'Automatic' was selected, that is where I ran into a problem. Instead of being able to click on 'Start' under
'Service Status', all the options below that were 'greyed out'. Now in the box beside the
'Service Status', it already had the word 'started', so I'm still not sure why I'm not getting any sound.

I also tried to going to my motherboard manufacturer's web site to try and download the latest sound drivers, which worked fine the first time (before my computer crashed last week), but I can't seem to repeat the same task. After I went to the Crucial web site to
get my computer's specs, I found out that my motherboard was a GMate GA-8S661FXM.
I then went to the 'Gigabyte' site, since I thought that that was the maker of my motherboard. Can somebody help? Thanks!

Sashag

What was going on in Hardware > Device Manager? - all the Sound Video and Game Controllers, were they showing as working?

RussellXPD

You folks are the best. This worked great!!!

You folks are the best. This worked great!!!

Thats good ,what was it that you did that worked great ,as there are a few suggestion in this thread ,I tried for 2 days ,and finally gave up and reinstalled winxp to fix the problem.

Thanks u r really great!!!!...it worked!

Hey! It seems it took you two months to reply! But I suppose the posts stay there in cyberspace and what was true then should stay true. I noticed that 50,000+ people have been browsing.

I found a fix!

I had this problem as well. It happened randomly in the middle of downloading music.
But thanks to some tech help from another site, the fix was pretty easy.

Go to Start --> Run, and type in services.msc.

A window will pop up with a list of services. Scroll down to Windows Audio. Right-click
and click on Properties.

Make sure that "Startup type" is set to automatic. Also, make sure, under "Service
status," start is selected. (Mine was somehow set on stopped. I clicked start and
-- voila! -- it worked.)

Hope this works for you, too.

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanxxxxxxxxxxxx.

ok so i have looked to see if i need to start it and it was stared the only noice i here is when i click ok on the, there are no active mix devices available screen my computer is a comaq presario i got this problem when i reinstalled windows

You will need to reinstall your sound drivers.

Check the manufacturers website or else tell me the exact make and model of your laptop and i will look for a link.

i dnt have a laptop i have a destop and the manufacturer of my computer is gateway and i dnt know how to find my model numbre can u help me plz my email is <snipped>

Email removed. Thats not allowed. Check the rules with regard to "keep it on site".

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/dlcenter.asp

Go here. It will tell you how to identify which model you have and will show you all the drivers for it.

Go to Start --> Run, and type in services.msc.
>
>A window will pop up with a list of services. Scroll down to Windows Audio. Right-click
>and click on Properties.
>
>Make sure that "Startup type" is set to automatic. Also, make sure, under "Service
>status," start is selected. (Mine was somehow set on stopped. I clicked start..
hope it will help you..

<snip email. do not post "fake signatures" - check the rules!>

Im having the same problem i reformatted my computer like yesterday installed everything, everything is fine now but my sound isnt working each time i click on "Volume Controle" Says "There are no device mixers available" what can i do? Tryed doing the Start - > Run -> services thinkie everything was on :S

By the way if anyone has dell and wonderes why they have no sound after installing/upgrading thier os its because dell uses Sigmatel HD sound in most of its dimensions which is a PITA as xp and many other oses need drivers

I have a dell dimension that we just reinstalled windows xp on, after everything was done properly (well as we thought)
We have no sound. everything is fine in the services.msc thing, Startup type is automatic and and service status is started. we get the message there are no active mixer devices when i try to go to volume control.
When i try to install the drivers (soundMAX) i get the error message "the file 'ksuser.dll' on windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 CD is needed."
I put the cd in and it says the file is not found please verify the correct filename was given.

Please help me!!! i am completely stumped!!
Sara

Thank you it worked for me too!

I found a fix!

I had this problem as well. It happened randomly in the middle of downloading music.
But thanks to some tech help from another site, the fix was pretty easy.

Go to Start --> Run, and type in services.msc.

A window will pop up with a list of services. Scroll down to Windows Audio. Right-click
and click on Properties.

Make sure that "Startup type" is set to automatic. Also, make sure, under "Service
status," start is selected. (Mine was somehow set on stopped. I clicked start and
-- voila! -- it worked.)

Hope this works for you, too.

ok i really need help im getting the same msg everyone else is getting.
ive tryd almost everyones sugestions on this thread exepts i have no clue what type of computer this is
is there anyway i can like open it up and that will reveal what kind it is ?

ok i really need help im getting the same msg everyone else is getting.
ive tryd almost everyones sugestions on this thread exepts i have no clue what type of computer this is
is there anyway i can like open it up and that will reveal what kind it is ?

hi,this program will tell you all about your system download and install and check it out .! you can post the results here and i will help you find correct sound drivers for it
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

ok so i didnt now what you wnated exactly so heres like everything it says

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

System Model
VIA Technologies, Inc. PM800-8237
Enclosure Type: Desktop

and i assumed thats all youd need but if its not tell me what and ill tell you what it says
thanks !!

ok so i didnt now what you wnated exactly so heres like everything it says

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

System Model
VIA Technologies, Inc. PM800-8237
Enclosure Type: Desktop

and i assumed thats all youd need but if its not tell me what and ill tell you what it says
thanks !!

close ,what showing in the multimedia section ,right had side under display?

driver download for that board .try reinstalling cmeida drivers
http://www.asrock.com.tw/mb/download.asp?Model=P4VM8&s=478

but when it was downloaded nothing happened it still wasnt working so i just took it offf

did you install it after you downloaded it ,

Make sure that "Startup type" is set to automatic. Also, make sure, under "Service
status," start is selected.

My settings were these before I opened Volume Control! I still have no sound. I have a Mobile Intel Pentium III CPU - M 1200 MHz 1.20GHZz, 256 MB RAM

JBennet,

I followed all of your instructions to a capital 'T' and nothing is working. This is what I have for a computer.

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)

Compaq Presario 061 EG733AA-ABA SR1620NX NA540 0nx1411RE101AMETH00
System Serial Number: CNN5350CFD
Enclosure Type: Desktop

Processor

2.00 gigahertz AMD Sempron
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board

Board: MSI AMETHYST-M 1.0
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.47 03/03/2006

I don't know if that is enough information for you. I have no sound and I clicked on volume and everything is grey shaded. I have tried to go to http://www.hp.com and I have gone to http://www.windowsupdate.com and following through with services.msc

Please help me.

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