Driver issues

[mimosastar705]

I don't know exactly where to post this so I hope this is okay. For about a month and a half now I have been having issues with my sound. My speaker in my taskbar has a red 'x' on it and I've tried to go to other forums to see if I could fix the problem but to no avail it hasn't fixed it. I've followed ALL the steps:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
2. Click the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager.
   If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
3. Click Sound, video, and game controllers to expand.
4. Under Sound, video, and game controllers, double-click the entry for your sound card, and then click the Driver tab.
   
   Note If a Driver tab is not present, the entry that you clicked under Sound, video, and game controllers may not be the correct entry for your sound card. Try clicking any additional entries listed under Sound, video, and game controllers.
5. Click Update Driver Software.
6. Follow the Update Driver Software Wizard to update the sound card driver.

The problem is I don't have Sound, video, and game controllers no where in the device manager. So I am not able to fix anything. Sometimes when I reboot the computer the red 'x' is gone from my speaker and I can toggle the volume but when I try to watch a video the flash player crashes.
Not only am I not getting any sound I am not able to play or load a CD in the cd-rom.
I asked my dad for help on this and he seems to think that my drivers are completely broken and I would have to fix the hardware. Is there any other help out there for this situation? Any help would be completely appreciated.

 

[PvilleStang]

What kind of PC are you working on? Have you run hardware diagnostics on your audio device? It could be a hardware error, or it could be a system error. Check your log files and see if you can see errors when you launch flash videos.

 

[Indigo]

Boot your system into Safe Mode (tap F8 on startup) and check the device manager there. You can also go to the View menu and choose "show hidden devices" and see if it shows up somewhere in there. Right click and uninstall the card, then reboot. If you don't see it in there anywhere, then either the card is dead, or if it's onboard, it's disabled (or dying if it keeps disappearing on you)

 

[mimosastar705]

I am working on a Compac Presario F700 with windows vista. I tried to reboot my system into safe mode and it didn't work. Upon restarting my computer it also has the tendency to shut off and turn on multiple times before actually starting up. I bought this computer from a friend who was completely computer illiterate and didn't have virus protection on here when he was downloading various things. I don't know if this could be the cause. I have had another friend completely clean out my system when I got this. Now a few months later the drivers stopped working. I have also tried to restore the system to the time before this happened and it doesn't go back that far now. Should I just take it in to get it fixed?

 

[PvilleStang]

Wipe and reload may be a good option here. Grab the original CD if you can, else the same version Vista, back up all your files, and reinstall the OS. Pull down all new drivers from the Compaq / HP website for the PC, and then load on the files you know are clean (maybe consider doing an AV scan on all files before bringing them back over). This way, after the full install, you can rule out anything the previous owner did to it.

 

[matthewm1987]

go on device manger on control panel and update your driver from there pal

 

[cboucher]

go on device manger on control panel and update your driver from there pal

Did you not even read the original post or are you purposely trying to annoy people?

 

[thompatry]

When you do wipe you computer, throw in a few extra dollars and buy Windows 7. It will be well worth you money.

 

[mimosastar705]

Ok thanks I will give that a try. So basically I would wipe the computer clean and reinstall Windows and see how that works?

 

[thompatry]

Yes.