No audio in vista on realtek

[jlockley]

Working (my last ever) off the shelf desktop, ACER with 946gz-am board with onboard Realtek audio, I suddenly lost all sound. Googling I find that I am not alone. I uninstalled driver and software and reinstalled from Realtek site, with the result that I not only have no sound but the system does not recognize the speakers (It did previously).

I have contacted Acer tech support (" my resources are very limited"), whose best solution is to reinstall the system (which means data loss, two weeks reinstalling software, etc) - to see if it isn't a hardware issue. ("If it works, we will know anything is all right").

I really, really want to keep my relatively new system, which it took a long time to transfer from my old one. anyone can help me with information while I am buying a backup drive, I will be eternally grateful.

Rest info: Home Premium 2 gb ram, all recently installed software and Windows updates removed, removed gaming and sound from device manager and rebooted.

 

[BadBigBen]

thanx for posting the solution, for those who may have similar problems...

about the STAR thingy, you need to have JavaScript enabled, and Sun Java installed...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[jlockley]

I am thinking it may have been something else, but I am not certain. After reconnection the computer went into the pre safe mode choice screen,. (I don't know the term). The default was "repair" which I clicked several times without apparent success before I tried normal startup, which worked fine. If there was a repair process, it took about three seconds, so I doubt it. On the other hand, it would make more sense than..say...unplugging it. It's a much appreciated mystery.

 

[jlockley]

Just a follow up here. It kicked out again. I haven't done much to see if the fix works again, as I just picked up a sound card and will go that way.