Re: No Sound
 

Mouse may just be wear and tear (espicially the tap pad). As for sound a setting may have been changed in Windows or the BIOS preventing the sound from working. You could always go to the Lapto Manufatures website and re-downloading the Audio Driver for your laptop and the mouse / tap pad as well. If that works then its all fine and dandy. If not prep your laptop for formatiing (get copies of all your documents etc...). I have not had much luck with Restoring the system to the last known good date only b/c not many people know about it nor do they know how to work it properly. But it's always a shot. Restore the system to its last known good date. If that don't work, use the master restore CD / DVD (for the much newer models) to restore the system back to when it was first shipped to you. (YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA IF YOU DON'T BACK IT UP ESPICIALLY WITH THE LAST OPTION!!!!!!!). CMOS Batteries should be replaced every 3 - 5 years but don't generally go bad ever. CMOS Batteries help the BIOS remember all the information & settings. If the battery should go all it will do is forget Time / Date and User Settings and should not have immediate effects on system operation except the before mentioned items. (User Settings in BIOS).

Re: No Sound
 

Hm... well, my computer is practically brand new. It was a replacement for my other laptop that the keyboard went bad on. They sent me a new computer and let me keep the old one, so I got a brand new computer for $80.

But I digress... the computer won't let me copy anything or run anything in Safe Mode. I haven't messed with it for a while because it stormed terribly here (tornadoes, hail, lightning, etc).

I've run the restore to previous time, but that too didn't work.


Al, I've had the computer since January, I think. It does run a lot, but I turn it off when I'm done using it 98% of the time. No weird sounds. How do I get the CMOS? How do I use a disk with DOS commands?


The mouse and sound card aren't really an issue right now. I think I know that the sound card is a driver issue. But the mouse can't be worn out, it just won't let the tap option say unselected.

Thanks for the help, again, everyone.

Re: No Sound
 

Budda,
CMOS or the setup for your computer can be accessed by pressing one of the Function keys while the computer is booting up. Usually it is F1 but on some computers it is the DEL key. It should tell you during the boot up screen which to use. If your computer has a floppy drive and if another computer has a floppy drive you can format a system disk that allows you to at least see directories on the drive. You will need a DOS primer to know how to step through the commands. usually by typing c: you can get to the root directory on the C drive. Then type dir/p and you will get a directory listing one page at a time. Hit any key to advance and you will see if all is still on the drive. If there is nothing on the drive then you may have to format C: and rebuild. I think you may have other problems though.
If you suspect a sound card problem, you might disable it in the CMOS setup. Save the settings and then continue to boot.
There are some really nasty viruses out there that wipe the boot sector of the drive. That is where the turn on info for your computer resides. It might be recoverable but you will need a good virus program to do that.

Re: No Sound
 

If you have a windows XP install disk you can use Recovery Console to re-configure your computer.

If you insert the disk and boot your computer, before the install starts it will ask if you want to run the install, or run recovery console. If you run recovery console, you will get a DOS-like prompt. You will need the know the administrator password on your computer, because you will log-on to your existing winXP install. You will be running winXP off the CD, without a GUI, but logged into your existing winXP install.

What that means is you will have full access to any configuration setting for Windows. I'm hoping there is someone here who is more familiar with Recovery Console who can give you some ideas. I have only ever used it to perform a system restore when I couldn't even boot into safe-mode, and I was following an online guide.

Recovery console is a very powerful tool. It has the power to destroy your Windows install, and corrupt your hard drive. BE VERY CAREFUL WHAT YOU DO!

Re: No Sound
 

Thank you all for your help. I fixed the problem... seems that my computer won't start up if my digital camera memory card is in the slot. The sound problem has been fixed, too. Thanks again.

Re: No Sound
 

Please back up everything. Make your restore disc(s) and be ready if your hard drive goes south this afternoon. That way, you'll be ready if it does. The reason I say this is that it is odd that a memory card would bother the boot process at all.

Please try the following only after you've backed it up first:

You might try running a check disk--open the Run window (either by pressing R with the Windows key held, or if you don't have a Windows key, press Start, Run) and type:
chkdsk c: /r
and press OK. A DOS-style window will open; it should state that it cannot lock the drive. Type Y and press enter; this will let the scan run when the system reboots. Restart it; the scanner will do a detailed scan. If you see a bunch of errors, you may have seen a hard drive failure.

JBot

Re: No Sound
 

I hate to say this but any type of Flash or USB Ext. Drive will cause the system not to boot up. During the POST the system looks and finds all drives and see's which one it can try and boot from. It finds a USB Ext Drive or Flash Drive it will try and boot from it. The only way to change it from looking at them is to change the Startup Process and make sure that the Removeable Disk is the last thing that the BIOS will try and boot from and that CD-ROM, Floppy and HDD are in that order.

Re: No Sound
 

I realize that the computer will try to boot to a USB drive; I have done this myself. However, this will only give a "No OS" or "Error loading OS" or black-screen-with-flashing-gray-underscore error, and will never boot Windows (OK, if you configured your flash drive's MBR to point to the hard drive, it will work, but I'm assuming that's not what's going on). That system, if trying to boot from an SD card, would not boot at all!

Good point though. If it was me, I would be preparing myself for it to fail. That way, there are no surprises of the bad kind. That's just sound advice anyhow.

JBot

Re: No Sound
 

Guys,
It seems to me that there is a known problem with camera memory cards and startup on Windows computers. It is not related to a boot sequence, but as I remember had something to do with a hardware interupt used during the boot sequence and the interference of the memory card. This causes problems on both internal and external card readers. I know it was an issue with our external card reader last year.

Re: No Sound
 

Yeah, this was an issue with an empty SD Memory Card Adapter/Extender used to allow my SD card to fit in the slot. I didn't even realize it was in there. I had my dad take a look at it, which is always a last resort, and he called back saying that I was an idiot. No new news there. Anyhow, it's back to working perfectly and I see no reason it could fail now. The mouse thing still doesn't work, but I've given up on it. As a precaution, everything is now backed up.

Re: No Sound
 

No biggy, now you know how to use the Notke rule. When something stops working go where the last person was. Now on to the mouse...do you have both an internal and external mouse connected? They usually conflict with each other. There may be some software that resets the mouse to a specific operation when you open it.

Re: No Sound
 

No, the mouse is just the internal, tap pad. It's a Synaptics and there are options to change the settings under the mouse part of the control panel. However; when I do that, it usually reverts back to its previous state within 30 minutes or so.

Re: No Sound
 

I have a Synaptics pad on my laptop and don't have a problem. I really like the scroll features on the side and bottom. You might want to peruse the Synaptics website for known issues or driver updates. Same goes for Microsoft. You might not be the only one having this issue.