What would cause a computer to..........

[ff18wife]

What would cause my mouse and sound to stop working and my graphics to become really strange looking? Mouse works in SAFE mode though. Anxious to get this issue resolved.
Thanx.

 

[mscallisto]

Also you said

"When I go into the control panel, it will not let me open up the Sound icon and the Multimedia icon"

explain this

 

[ff18wife]

I click on the icons and nothing happens. The icons won't open. No error messages either, just nothing.

 

[mscallisto]

Can you check for a file?

Start
Find
Files or Folders

In the field titled Named: put mmsys.cpl
In the field titled Look in: put c:
click Find Now

pass me the results not found or if found tell me the
folder where it resides.

mmsys.cpl is the control panel program that displayes
the multimedia setup.

ps
If you know your way around windows say so and I'll stop
giving you the verbose instructions.

much luck

 

[ff18wife]

I am fairly good at maneuvering around Windows but the step by step instructions ensure that I know I'm going in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
I searched for the file and it comes up in C:\Windows\System. Is that right?

 

[mscallisto]

Yes that's good.

Can you do the Find again then when mmsys.cpl appears
double click it to see if it shows your multimedia properties window.

If it does tell me what it says e.g preference device and is the checkbox for [show volumn control on the taskbar] clicked?

Do you see the little speaker on your taskbar?

If yes, click the speaker and see if the volumn is totally off or mute has been checked.

Finally for now how did you make with checking for conflicts in the control panel (above)

 

[ff18wife]

Ok, when I double click the mmsys.cpl, nothing happens. Just like when I click on the sound or multimedia icons.

Second, where do I do this.....

Click on your sound board, you should be able to
identify it by name.

Click properties

see if you see the message "this devive is
working properly"

If not (thats bad) click the resourves tab
and see if there are any "conflicts" listed.

If yes tell me what they are.

 

[mscallisto]

OK

For the second

Start
Settings
Control Panel
doubleclick System icon
click Device Manager tab
scroll down until you see your Sound device
click the + sign on your Sound device

Look for any yellow exclamation points, they
indicate a problem with drivers or conflicts
with interrupts.

If no exclamation sign's that's good.

If you can you get this far and see no yellow exclamations we can conclude this exercise otherwise let me know.

Also aside from this can you see the little speaker on your taskbar at the lower right side of your monitor screen.

Oh if I could only sit at your keyboard for 10 minutes!!!

There are more things to try if you are not successful.

 

[ff18wife]

There were no yellow exclamations.
My little speaker on my taskbar disappeared. What does that mean?

 

[mscallisto]

Ok I need your help to make sure BIOS is seeing your sound device.

Can you go back to the following place where you:


scrolled down until you see your Sound device
click the + sign on your Sound device

Look for any yellow exclamation points, they
indicate a problem with drivers or conflicts
with interrupts

When you clicked the + sign (which turns it to a - sign)
did you see one or more devices listed?

I'm looking for devices that reference (Audio or Audio driver). You should see the name of your sound device e.g. Aztech or SoundBlaster etc.

Do you see any device that says it's (Audio)?

 

[ff18wife]

I'll have to check it tonight when I get home and respond back then. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

 

[ff18wife]

I just went through all of the steps above. There are 4 items listed under sound.
1-Master Riptide PCI Audio Device
2-Riptide PCI Audio Legacy Resources
3-Riptide PCI Game Controller
4-Riptide Virtual Gameport

I checked the properties for each one and each one says that it is working properly.

I forgot to mention - this computer, which is an HP8562, I have had sound problems with it from Day 1 which HP has basically ignored. They wanted to charge me to fix something that is obviously a manufacturing defect. If I go onto a website that has sound, play sound files - I would get this screechy staticy noise and then loose sound all together until I restarted the program.

Hope this doesn't throw a monkey wrench into the works. Maybe my sound card bit the dust.

 

[mscallisto]

Maybe yes maybe no.

I'll try to locate drivers for that card, it still may be you have bogus drivers loaded.

Meantime can you tell me if the sound card is on the motherboard or if it's an independant card inserted into one of your card slots?

If it's on the motherboard then you should see the speaker plugs on the base of your PC. Otherwise it's located in one of the card slots.
Can you tell?

Can you, if required later, remove the card if necessary, maybe with the help of your friend who helped before?

I'll get back to you.

 

[mscallisto]

I did manage to find what could be the correct drivers for you at

http://www.soundcard-drivers.com/drivers/11/11867.htm

You will have to down load them and follow the instructions to install.

The site requires you sign-up for a userid/password but it looks like it's free.

Yell if you need assistance.

I'll keep looking to make sure these are the correct drivers or at least for an alternate source that doesn't require a login.

Put it this way... it cant get any worse so it's worth a try.

much Luck

 

[ff18wife]

Updated the drivers and no good. Unless I'm missing a step??? I'm at the end of my rope now unless someone comes up with something else....