I got a Dell computer awhile back. It had the hard drive and the modem removed from it (it might be missing something else I'm not sure). Anyways I put in a hard drive, modem, and installed Windows XP. I have no sound the speakers are hooked up correct but nothing . I was told I needed to go to Dell.com and download a sound driver. I tried that and it does not work I get this message Driver not found reboot your system and run this setup again. Rebooting dose not work. What is a sound card could this be what I need?

Look on the back of the computer, all over the back panel. Look for a red(pink)/blue/green trio of jacks like on this card:

http://www.more-shop.co.uk/images/sound card.jpg

Or on the back panel like this:

http://www.education.purdue.edu/edit/connectors/sound_card_ports.JPG

Or under the mouse and keyboard input like this:

http://www.shinyplastic.com/reviews/dell-dimension-8400/dimension-8400-rear-ports.jpg


Now, here is the deal.

1) Tell me which of those you've got on your computer. Do you have the card/slot like in picture #1 or link #2? Or do you have the last one, where it's just underneath the keyboard and mouse?

2) Also, in that last picture notice near the bottom middle there is a barcode with a 6-8 digit label - this is something specific to Dell called a "service tag". Please tell me what your label on your computer says - that way I can link you to the correct sound driver for your system.

3) As an FYI, four bits of info:

a) you will always plug your speakers into the GREEN or BLACK sound port.
b) many speakers require a power connector - look on the back of one of them for a DC voltage port and make sure yours are plugged in.
c) most speakers have an on/off button on them - make sure yours is ON
d) go into the Control Panel (in the start menu), when it opens, in the top right-hand corner pick "switch to classic view" (if it's there), go into the sounds/settings area and make sure the sound is not MUTED.

4) Go into the Control Panel, double-click the System icon (again - see # 3d above for "switching to classic view" or it may not show up), click on the Hardware tab, click the Device Manager button and tell me if anything has a ( !! ) yellow triangle near it. Tell me the name of the device.

with all of this info, I am bound to be able to help you fastest.

Mine is like the last one. The service tag # is 69MWP11. I have them plugged into the green. The speakers are from my old computer and they don't have a power connector and they don't have a on off switch they should come on when the computer comes on. In the control panel I am not able to switch it to classic view (the icon is there it just don't work). Anyways it is not muted the area with the mute box and the speaker volume is just shadowed. The Device Manager has no !! or yellow triangles.

Ok, one last thing then....

What happens if you plug a pair of headphones into the green jack on the back of the computer?

I don't have any headphones to try:rolleyes:

Ok, here is the date your system was built and everything that came with it:

Service Tag: 69MWP11
System Type: OptiPlex GX260
Ship Date: 7/27/2002
Dell IBU: Americas

Quantity Parts # Part Description
1 4T274 PRINTED WIRING ASSY, PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), GX260, 845G, AUDIO/VIDEO, GIGAHERTZ NETWORK INTERFACE CARD/CONTROLLERS, 2
1 9K792 PROCESSOR, 80532, 2.4G, 512K, 533FSB, SOCKET N
1 5120P CORD, POWER, 125V, 6FT, SPT2, UNSHIELDED
1 4N433 MOUSE, PERSONAL SYSTEM 2, 6P, 2BTN, LOGITECH, SAW34
1 4N454 KEYBOARD, 104, UNITED STATES, NMB, LOW COST, MIDNIGHT GRAY
1 5N356 KIT, SPEAKER, 120, HK206, SAMSUNG
1 181UR CARD (CIRCUIT), MULTI-MEDIA, AUDIO, CRTV-4780, FRONT AUDIO JACK
1 1R861 CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 32MB, RADEON, 7500, FULL HEIGHT
1 8D466 DISPLAY, CATHODE-RAY TUBE, 19, DUAL, P992, MIDNIGHT GRAY, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION
1 9P514 HARD DRIVE, 20G, I, HALF HEIGHT, 7.2K, 40G/P, SEAGATE SNOWMASS
1 5R212 FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 3MD, NO BEZEL, NEC CORPORATION, CHASSIS 2001
1 1R596 KIT, SOFTWARE, OVERPACK, WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL, COMPACT DISKETTE W/DOCUMENTATION, ENGLAND/ENGLISH, A02
1 0R575 DIGITAL VIDEO DISK DRIVE, 680M, 16X, I, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, LITEON, CHASSIS 2001, V3
1 8R080 KIT, DOCUMENTATON ON FLOPPY DISK, SOFTWARE, DIGITAL VIDEO DISK DRIVE, CYBERLINK, 4.0, 2CH
2 3K113 DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 256, 266M, 32X64, 8K, 184



I am guessing you don't have the old speakers anymore...it would be really helpful to have an additional pair of speakers in this case because you have told me (right?) that you don't see any exclamation points like this in your Device Manager:

http://www.infopackets.com/graphics/device+manager.gif


I am assuming inside Device Manager, you are seeing something that says "Sound, video and game controllers" like you see in that picture I just linked. Is that correct?


The computer has on-board sound. It says in the build sheet that there is another "audio jack" in the front of the computer.
You will find this and two USB ports by pulling on the bottom part of the gray half-circle on the front of your computer. Pull hard, it is on a hinge and will pull up.

You can download the sound card drivers/software for your computer here:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/audio/R56339.EXE

You may also want to update the chipset drivers for your computer here:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/chipset/R41334.EXE

Go ahead and download both and install them.

I don't know what else to tell you - if you can't find another pair of speakers or a pair of headphones to test the jack on the rear and the front of the computer....


Let me know if you see the "sound, video and game controllers" item in your Device Manager.

Okay got another set of speakers today and tried them. It still don't work. Tried to download the sound driver it still says driver not found. Under the device manager there are two big yellow ? the first one is other devices and under that is ethernet controller. I did not find them the other day because I was looking in the wrong place. I think the auto jacks in the front of the computer are not hooked up because I found this wire not hooked up to anything. There is also another wire not hooked up to anything it comes off the back the cd rom. here is a photo I don't know if it helps or not.

Please explain this "Driver not found" message. If you can give the error message word-for-word, this is best - I have never seen a message "driver not found" before and I work on, repair and setup these Dell machines from scratch all the time.

Also, one of these is your network/ethernet driver:
http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R54402.EXE
http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R66787.EXE
http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R49958.EXE

I think it will be the first or the second of those - you will know you installed the right one when the exclamation point in the Device Manager goes away and the network card is no longer listed in "Other devices".

With this driver download link and all other download links above, I advise you to right-click the link and choose "Save as" from the menu.
Once the driver is downloaded, run it and it should decompress the driver files to your hard drive.
Once the files are decompressed, it should run an installer.

The wire coming off of the back of the CDROM drive should be attached to the main board at some point - normally this will be on a connector somewhere near the back panel of the computer. The main board should be silkscreened with something like "AUD1" or similar - something related to AUDIO and/or CDROM or some variant of those letters on the board. Look for connectors that match. You can only pop it in one way.

If you are trying to hear sounds by playing CD's, having that cable disconnected shouldn't really affect it! XP is able to play CD's to the speakers without that attached, I thought.

The additional wire to the front (probably the white connector in the picture you posted) will have a specific connector that matches it on the main board. This will probably be on the corner of the main board closest to the bottom of the case towards the front of the case (near that bottom hinge). Look around for it - it might be silkscreened in white print something like "FRNTPAN" or "PANEL" or "FRONT PNL" or ... you get the idea. It's a molded fitting, and there will be only one that will match that connector.

Ok - so that is a lot of stuff for you to take care of. Let me know how it turns out.

Also - please let me know what the exact error message is when you're installing that sound driver!

Also Also - I think you said there were two exclamation points in the device manager! Please let me know what those are!

Also Also Also - If you want to download all of the other possible drivers for your computer, please go to http://support.dell.com and ... hell, just go here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=PLX_PNT_P4_GX260&os=WW1&osl=EN# and expand each item to get a list of drivers for downloading - some do not pertain to your computer - for example, there are driver downloads for wireless and sometimes there are five different network drivers - so be aware of all that. :)

(And good luck :) Let's keep working on this!)

First off thank you for all of the help so far. I found out how to print screen today. Here is a photo of the device manager with the yellow question marks.
http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL368/6838550/13131129/194496204.jpg
This is the error I get when I try to download the driver.
http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL368/6838550/13131129/194496210.jpg
The error says Driver not found! Reboot your system, and run this setup again
http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL368/6838550/13131129/194496207.jpg

Ah, ok, that makes more sense. It's specific to the soundmax software, not the system. There is no way we would have understood each other without that screen capture.

Please do me another favor. Go into the Device Manager and click the + sign next to Sound Video and Game Controllers, then screencap everything that shows underneath it for me.

Also, can you take a screencap of your volume properties? This is normally found by going into the Sounds settings in the Control panel...or, if you click the little (<) symbol by the clock, there may be a speaker down there to doubleclick as a shortcut.

Thanks!

okay here it is
http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL368/6838550/13131129/194516507.jpg
Is the correct????
http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL368/6838550/13131129/194518187.jpg

Ok, so your system thinks it has no audio card inside. I am guess it used to and someone turned the stock one off. That makes a LOT more sense. Man, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Reboot your computer. When the DELL logo shows, please press F2 to enter "Setup". Depending on the version of BIOS you have, you may hafta press "ALT + P" to flip through the pages of settings in there (there's usually a couple, sometimes not, it depends). Make sure the Audio Controller ("Integrated Audio") setting is set to ON. I cannot tell you what page this is on!! Once you set to ON, you will need to save the settings (or follow the instructions to exit out). Once you exit, THEN you may need to install the driver!!!

PS - here is your manual for your computer: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx620/en/index.htm

Wow! it worked I have sound Thanks

Sorry it took so long :)

You should also be able to reinstall that sound driver, which is advisable to get the full benefit of the sound card.

I would also consider hitting that link up there:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=PLX_PNT_P4_GX260&os=WW1&osl=EN#

And popping on the other drivers. A BIOS upgrade is probably advisable also. You can download that for your system here:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/R89214.exe

If anything else comes up with that computer, I probably have an answer if you can't find it. I know quite a bit about the Dell systems.

Shifty Is A Wizzard!!!

Shifty, PM sent

Please post your complaint in a new thread. I don't answer computer help PMs. It doesn't benefit anyone but the person having the problem if all of the knowledge I share gets locked away in a PM box :)

Thanks!

Im having the exact same problem. But I checked my bios and its set to auto and is started.Ive run through everything I can find but nothing changes the"driver not found".It a HP dx2000mt, Analog Devices (5.12.1.3665)(audio),Gigabyte (MB) Thanks

What version of Windows are you running?

Does anything show up in the Device Manager with a yellow question mark and exclamation point like this: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showpost.php?p=1823882&postcount=11

By the way - in the meantime....

Here is HP's webpage dedicated to your computer: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Home.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&lang=en&cc=us

Here is the software/driver page for your computer: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=401821&lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&taskId=135

If you are running Windows XP, I suggest you try to download and install the sound driver using this link, then reboot after the install is complete: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&prodNameId=401821&swEnvOID=1098&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=PSG_I19912-103548

Im running XP pro, Ive done all you suggested, before hand, its during the driver setup that you get an error.When I delete the sound device it is reconized on the reboot but says no drivers, when you try to run the driver setup from the driver download you get a error like in the pic 'driver not found

when you right-click on the "Multimedia Audio Controller" line/icon and choos e"Properties", what does it say about the status of the device? Driver corrupt? IRQ sharing violation? Something like this?

It just says "the drivers for this are device are not installed"
When you hit "reinstall drivers",It cant find any.When you download the driver from HP it hangs up like the other guys pic above , like there is something wrong with the downloaded one.It cant find the driver but it wont let install a new one.?????

do you have an aftermarket sound card?

No, its the integrated one that came with it.

And you *are* running Windows XP, right?

What exactly happens when you install the software you donwload from this link?: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&prodNameId=401821&swEnvOID=1098&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=PSG_I19912-103548

It does like the guys above, and says "Driver not found reboot your system and run setup again", but when you do it does the same thing.I tryed a different driver down load and it did the same thing.So its like something is preventing it from installing? Could my antivirus interfere, (Symantec 10.0.1.1000) networked.Not positive how to temporarily turn it off to check,but there is no indecation that its interfereing.

yes, XP pro

Download and install this chipset driver:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&prodNameId=401821&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=PSG_I20994-104918

And download and install this one:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=401819&prodNameId=401821&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=PSG_I19920-103556


Maybe somehow the sound is tied to your chipset.

Shifty,I did. Everything seems to be exactlythe same, no driver, wont let you install a new one.???
After some searching I think I came across the right tool I need to fix this thing.LOL

No more ideas?

yes, been away for a week or so. i extracted the drivers from the driver install program, we can try to install manually, but i need a couple more days to get my stuff together.

Ok, I'll be around. Thanks

Good Thread! I am also having the same problem on my Compaq SR1750NX and will try the download when I get home. I reloaded xp pro and all of a sudden no sound. When I open up the sound a audio device properties box everything is greyed out. i did check and made sure that windows audio was started under service (under component services) as well as in the bios and no luck:banghead:. I have tried to down load the driver from hp but no luck there ether.

oj70chevy - didn't your computer come with a Restore disc? Usually HP/compaq computers come with a restore disc you can insert into the computer and restore it to the state it was when you bought it (with all original programs, apps and drivers)

i'm sure it did but i bought it a little over a yesr ago and dont know what i did with the papperwork or disk.