Soundcard installed ok, but "no playback devices" listed in Multimedia

[Rozza]

Hi,

I have a machine running windows ME. The soundcard is installed OK and there are no conflicts in device manager. When you look in "Sounds and Multimedia" under audio, the preferred device shows "no playback devices" and it is greyed out. There is no sound from the card at all, if you try to play a windows sound, the play button is greyed out.
I have tried uninstalling the sound card and reinstalling, removing the windows multimedia component and then re-adding it again, reinstalling windows me over the top of itself but none have worked. Can anyone help please cos I really don't want to have to format this machine.

Cheers

Paul

 

[mws5872]

I would recommend finding the exact drivers and searching for them on the net. Some drivers will work for ME and wont actually make the device work one of the bugs of mellium edition. good luck! try the manufactures website.

 

[eagle20]

Hello Rozza

Is your sound card an On board sound chip ? or a Regular PCI sound card ? If you have an on board sound chip - check your bios to be sure it is - Enabled -

When you install the sound card drivers ..be sure to go in - in safe mode first in Device manager ..to remove the old sound card drivers ..then reboot ..and install the new drivers..

What Sound card do you have ?

Eagle20

 

[Corphan]

Try this. Go to Add New Hardware Wizard, choose select device from list, choose System Devices, Microsoft, Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator. When that is finished reboot and reinstall your soundcard drivers. Fixed mine up nicely.

 

[J741]

If that doesn't work, un-install the drivers, and install an older driver that does not use the WDM driver architecture. Typically if you can find drivers for your sound card that are designed for use on Windows 95, force WIndows ME to use those drivers instead. Windows 95 did not use the WDM system, and any sound driver designed for Windows 95 will still work with Windows 98 or ME.

This is a very common problem that I have seen on many different computers with a wide variety of configurations.

If anyone knows of a reliable way to fix this common WDM problem without the need for non-WDM type audio drivers, please let me know !!

- James.