No Sound

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Okay, so I know you are all bored and willing to help a computer illiterate person, right?

Okay, great! I've got a problem with my sound on my laptop. My computer can't find the device. I don't know what I've done. Might I have a virus? My mouse is acting up too, it won't stay with the "No Tapping" option selected after, say, 30 minutes of manually turning the tap option off.

I don't know what kind of specs the fine people willing to help me need, or where to find them. I'm assuming I have driver issues, if that's the problem, where would I be able to find those at?

Thanks in advance,

Jeremiah

[JohnBoucher]

Questions...
What operating system?
Did you just upgrade to Vista?
When did this start and what did you do immediately prior to this happening?

The sound issue almost certainly is a driver issue. That may involve removing the driver and reinstalling the original from the mfg site.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Budda,
Have you tried a system restore operation? If you have done something, Windows does allow you to go back to a previous working configuration.
Al

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Budda,
Have you tried a system restore operation? If you have done something, Windows does allow you to go back to a previous working configuration.
Al

I've done this several times in the past and was planning on doing it immediately this morning, but my computer won't even start up now. It's staying on the Windows XP motion bar screen. This has happened to me, I think, twice since I got this new computer.

I'm running Windows XP Media Center Edition.
No Vista.
And I have no idea what I did before this happened. I just noticed it last night.

I'm very angry now, though. My system restore is still on the computer, I never had the chance to burn it to disk. I have XP system disks for my other two laptops, though. I wonder if those would work?

It's been on that screen now for over 30 minutes.

[Grant Cox]

I can't remember if the F8 menu is before or after the Windoze bar.. try pressing F8 when your computer starts up. If you get a black screen with a bunch of options, select "boot in last configuration that worked" or something to that effect. That might help the boot issue.

The sound thing is, as has been said, probably a driver issue.

I have no idea about the mouse, sorry

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by GeeForce

I can't remember if the F8 menu is before or after the Windoze bar.. try pressing F8 when your computer starts up. If you get a black screen with a bunch of options, select "boot in last configuration that worked" or something to that effect. That might help the boot issue.

The sound thing is, as has been said, probably a driver issue.

I have no idea about the mouse, sorry

I got that boot screen after I manually shut down the computer when I tried it again. I selected that option and it did the same thing. I remember that last time it wouldn't start up unless it was either plugged in or not plugged in, I can't remember. But even then it ran like molasses.

I think I may have been ravaged by a virus. I'm only running Windows Live OneCare. Told my dad it didn't work... but whatever.

I appreciate all this help, by the way. Thanks.

[Jeff 801]

Originally Posted by Budda648

I think I may have been ravaged by a virus. I'm only running Windows Live OneCare. Told my dad it didn't work... but whatever.

I appreciate all this help, by the way. Thanks.

It's a virus have you tried booting in safe mode?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Jeff 888

It's a virus have you tried booting in safe mode?

Er... um... no. I haven't. What would I do once I got into safe mode?

[Arefin Bari]

Have you recently formated your laptop?

Maybe, you are missing the audio driver. You may find the audio driver on your suppliers website. One of my friend had the same problem, and he just had to reinstall the audio drivers.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Budda648

Er... um... no. I haven't. What would I do once I got into safe mode?

Backup any important data, if possible create your restore disk, and preform a windows System Restore(the one is the Accessories\System Tools folder).

EDIT: You could also use Device Manager to see if there is any unrecognizable/malfunctioning hardware.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

Backup any important data, if possible create your restore disk, and preform a windows System Restore(the one is the Accessories\System Tools folder).

And if I have a virus... will it be transferred onto the disks with the important data? I will make a back-up disk, too. And the system restore is open, just haven't started it yet. It gave me a prompt to start it once safe mode started.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Budda648

And if I have a virus... will it be transferred onto the disks with the important data? I will make a back-up disk, too. And the system restore is open, just haven't started it yet. It gave me a prompt to start it once safe mode started.

It is possible a virus could be moved, but as long as you run a virus scan on that data before you open any files you should be fine.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

It is possible a virus could be moved, but as long as you run a virus scan on that data before you open any files you should be fine.

Okay, thanks. System restore just finished running. I set it back to June 24... I know it was working then.

Hopefully it will work now, but it looks like it's just sitting on the start up screen again. I guess I'll have to burn the system disks and reformat it.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Budda,
This does not entirely sound like a virus. You may have had a drive failure. How long have you had the computer? Do you run it a lot? Is there a wierd mechanical noise when you power on like the drive has bad bearings? Do you have any PCMCIA cards installed? Try taking those out and starting. You might also want to check that the CMOS setup has not changed so that it doesn't see your drive as the right size, sector, etc. I would also try making a boot disk on another computer with some DOS commands on it and see if you can read anything from the drive when you boot off the disk. If you can't see anything, then there might be a problem with the drive or the drive interface.
Al

[lukevanoort]

Another thing that is possible is the battery on your motherboard could be dead, this can cause it to 'forget' some things and result in generally wacky behavior.