I wiped my pc out a few months ago and had to have someone reinstall windows 98. Before I wiped it out, the sound was fine. It played thru windows media player or anything that you can play from. When I had it reinstalled, the only sound I could get was when you open, or close programs, and to play a cd, I have to go to the cd player. Now my windows media player will not work. It says there is no sound device installed, when I try to play a cd thru it. If I try to play a file that is already on the pc, it looks like it is playing but there ia no sound. I have always had a volume control icon in the bottom right hand screen, beside the time, it has now disappeared. I tried to go in thru find, programs, volume control and I see it, but when I click to open it, nothing happens. I know I must have a sound card, bc before I wiped the system out, it played in any program I wanted it to.
How do I get my volume control icon back and working? How do I get my windows media player to recognize the sound card or whatever it needs to? Is there anything I shouldn't be doing like sitting it on the floor or something like that, that could cause the volume control to disappear?

Sounds like you don't have your sound card drivers installed.

You will need to find out whether you have onboard or an add-card, what kind it is in order to find the drives.

Though It may look out of order here.
Please go thro the windows help troubleshooters-sound.

how do I find out if I have an onboard or off?
i don't have any software to go with any kind of soundcard.
it always worked since i bought the pc, so, i don't think it is anything that can be reinstalled, i didn't install it to begin with.
what about the volume control disappearing?
i had full volume in any program before i crashed the pc.
i get the pc fixed and i can only get volume on windows sounds and if i play a cd thru the cd player, nothing in windows media player.
now i get no sound on anything, volume control is gone and i need help bad.

Amber,

Your sound needs to have drivers loaded in order to work. The person that reinstalled Win98 should have loaded the sound driver.

Does your computer have any kind of documentation. Most computers ship with at least a motherboard manual and a CD with all the drivers for the MB.

Do you plug your speakers into a sound card that is plugged into a slot on the motherboard? On the back of your computer there are usually three to six slots for add-on cards such as video adapters, sound, modem. Do your speakers plug into one of these cards or do they plug into the motherboard? You may have to open your computer to see. If you do open it and you have a sound card, let us know what brand of card it is.

Or if you can find out which motherboard you have, we can figure out for you how to proceed.

Also, if it's possible, tell us a few details about your computer.

Gary

Generally if you have onboard sound, the speakers will plug into jacks that are right up against the other things you usually plug in, probably right next to your USB ports. They are usually near the top of the computer, but under the power supply. If you have a sound card, it will be in the slot near the bottom like gwallen said. This is in a tower. If you have a desktop (flat) computer, then it would be the same pattern, but tipped on the side.

If you can tell us what type of computer you have, it is more likely that we can tell you how to figure it out and maybe even where to find the drivers online. Meanwhile, look around and see if you have any disks that came with your computer.

Budfred

Without drivers for the sound card the volume controls will not load. That is why you don't have a volume control.

a few other things to look at are device manager and start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information.

It looks like a rectanangle, up and down, at the bottom is where i plug in the speakers, next to usb ports, there is a place for music in, music out, and a microphone, all 3 of these plug ins look the same. does this help?
also it is a compaq presario 7360 computer. i got it brand new, and everything was already on it. i am sure it did come with papaers and cd drivers reinstall things, but i have moved to texas and all that is probably still home in north carolina. so i have no way of getting it.
i went to windows website about the media player and saw some instructions to go thru to do start, device mngr, sounds, and all that, but none of this worked.

You should be able to download anything you might need from Compaq here:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareCategory.jhtml?lc=en&pagetype=software&prodId=pv7360p&sw_lang=en

Budfred

Posting the same problem in two threads makes it difficult for those trying to help.
Volume Control Disappeared (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18139)

Amber,

It sounds like you have an onboard sound card - that is, the sound card is part of your motherboard. You might try the following link's instructions:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bph02332

Thanks to everyone for your help. I will try these links and see what happens.

REID............it is not the same topic in 2 place, one is specifically for the volume control disappearing, which is a Windows problem I assume now
and the other is for the sound not working at all.

Amber,

It's the same problem. If the card's drivers aren't installed, Windows thinks there's no sound and therefore no need for a volume control.

Once you get the drivers installed, the volume control will magically appear.

Originally posted by amber scott

REID............it is not the same topic in 2 place, one is specifically for the volume control disappearing, which is a Windows problem I assume now and the other is for the sound not working at all.
Well, pardon me, but volume control disappeared and no sound, volume control gone confused my simple mind. Good luck.

Originally posted by Budfred
You should be able to download anything you might need from Compaq here:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareCategory.jhtml?lc=en&pagetype=software&prodId=pv7360p&sw_lang=en

Budfred

Hey, I am trying to go to this page you sent me and it says it cannot be displayed. How do I go about finding exactly what is at this link?
Thanks.

Hey, stuck again here.
I went to start, settings, control panel, system, sound device, and it says
ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM)
It will not let me make any changes and says it cannot be modified.
It also says system working, it doesn't sense the problem.
I tried the links Gwallen and Budfred sent to me. Budfreds I cannot get to and Gwallens, is for a yamaha sound thing, but I tried to do its directions anyway and it was for yamaha sound. Then it wouldn't let me search for an updated driver.
Where do I go from here, does finding out it is a Allegro help?
Sorry to be bugging you all, I just don't know what to do.

Boot into safe mode (hitting the {f8} key while booting and selecting safe mode from the menu), then go to device manager and remove all refferences to the sound card and any "Other" or "Unkown" devices (these will be separate categories, probably with a question mark for an icon)), then reboot......it should ask you for the drivers, point it to where you have extracted the new ones to (which is what should have happend when you ran the download).

I just checked the link and it worked ok. I am on my work computer that uses IE and I think I also used it to post the link initially. I have had trouble accessing the HP/Compaq sites at times too, I think when I am using Netscape at home. If you can't reach it through the link, you can possibly still get there by going to the HP/Compaq site and following the links to your page. Just use the name and model number "Presario 7360" as your search criteria. I would try the link again first though since it is a pain working your way through their site.

Budfred

Sorry. I felt sure from your description that you had an onboard Yamaha sound card.

Do what mjc says - get rid of the drivers in Device Manager and see what happens.

Tried the link from home again and it worked ok on Netscape too, so I don't know what happened for you. Maybe just try again....

As for your sound, I had an ESS sound card on my Compaq and ended up replacing it because it never worked well, even with software updates. Since yours is onboard, it may work better than mine did with the right drivers.

Budfred

Thanks, it went thru to the link at compaq this time. But unfortunatly the only drivers I saw were for a keyboard and some other stuff. I did email and ask them if they had one for
ESS Allegro PCI (WDM)
But I doubt they will get back to me anytime soon.
I checked the ESS Tech. website and it went into downloads and all kinds of stuff, but when I did get thru downloading something, I unzipped it with Winzip, and when I opened it, it closed immediatly.
So I am stuck again. DOn't know what to do.

Here are a few more possible places to download a usable version of the driver. The first is ESS so you may have already been there.

http://www.esstech.com/techsupp/drivers.shtm#pci

http://drivers.on-line.net.nz/details/e000365s.shtml

http://support.packardbell-europe.com/support/download/drv/CAT445.asp?c=ap

http://www.pbnec.nl/support/drv/cat445.html

Budfred

Ok, went thru ess and downloaded the correct driver.
Tried to install and it says no driver has been detected or installed on the pc.
So I am totally clueless now.
Also, now when I go to system, devices, the whole entire
sounds, devices, thing is gone. I followed directions from another post by MJC or something to add remove the thing and now it is gone.

Ok, go to Control Panel, Add New Hardware and have the wizard search for any uninstalled hardware. Hopefully it will find the sound and ask how you want to install. Click on Have Disk and then direct it to wherever you have the driver. It should then install it automatically for you. If this doesn't work, post back with what happened in as much detail as possible and we'll see what else might work.

Budfred

I tried the directions in the last post for adding new hardware, it only tried to add a plug and play monitor, couldn't get it to go to a sound device. I did get these directions from compaq......what do you think?

In order to resolve this issue, follow these steps:

To reinstall sound devices, you must first remove the devices from
Device Manager while the computer is in the Safe mode by performing the
following steps:

1. Press F8 during Startup to access the Startup menu. Ignore any error
messages that may occur.
2. Choose Safe Mode from the Startup menu and press Enter.
3. From the desktop, right-click My Computer and select Properties.
4. Click the Device Manager tab.
5. Double-click "Sound, video and game controllers."
6. Click the first listed device to select it.
7. Click Remove.
8. Repeat the above-mentioned steps to remove any additional devices.
9. Click OK.
10. Restart the computer. The system will now detect and reinstall the
devices.

This will resolve the issue.

Definitely... I thought you had already done that and that it didn't work. If you haven't done, go for it. Just make sure you know where you put the driver so you can direct Windows to it.

Good luck,
Budfred

Hey, I tried it, but I cannot get anything to happen. I hit restart and then held down the f8 button during start up and nothing happens, I guess I am more pc illiterate than I thought. When am I supposed to hold f8 down?

To enter the Safe Mode, once the boot process starts (like with the memory count) hold down the Control key until the safe mode menu appears.

Some machines will enter the safe mode with F8, but some won't.

Hi, I am really stuck again. Holding down control worked and I got into safe mode, followed the directions and now the PCI audio is back and everything but nothing went to detect a new hardware or reinstall anything, still no volume control or anything, still stuck, any suggestions? Is this becoming a lost cause? Is it still the pc techs deal if he didn't reinstall it or is something definatly wrong with my system?

In Safe Mode did you remove all of the sound card drivers in Device Manager like you were supposed to?

Also, what do you mean by "the PCI audio is back and everything"?

yeah i removed all of them under sound device and all that.
what i mean by it being back is i had followed someones directions off of here to remove it not in safe mode and the entire sound controller thing was gone, but now it is back under device mngr, but still nothing else.

Go into safe mode and remove it again.

Once you remove the drivers in Safe Mode, you can try going into Add New Hardware in Control Panel and manually install the drivers rather than trying to get Windoze to do it. Once you have finished, you would reboot and see if it is working.

And yes, I think the tech should have taken care of this in the first place.

Budfred

Definately it's the tech's fault.
Prior to wiping the system off he should at least taken note of the system's hardware, and ensure he could get the drivers back in one or another way.
It's better to keep a system working bad till later than one wiped off without the drivers: it renders it unusable.
However, maybe the drivers were installed but got corrupted, because it already was listed in system properties.

How about checking that the volume control component of Windows has been installed.

Go to
"Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs->Windows Setup->Multimedia->Details"
And tick "Volume Control" [also "Sound Recorder, "CD Player", "Media Player", etc].

Make sure you have your Windows CD ready to be put into the CD-ROM drive used to install this Windows setup.

To find out which "SourcePath" was used [which drive letter etc], go to:

"Start->Run" and in the "Open" window type "regedit" and click "ok".
When regedit runs, go to the:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->Software->Microsoft->Windows->Current Version->Setup" key.
Beneath "Name", find "SourcePath", then beneath "Data" you will find the path which tells you [and Windows] where windows was originally installed from [including the drive letter] and Windows will expect to find the Windows installation disk at that location when it attempts to install these Windows components.

Hello everyone.
Just wanted to tell you I have tried all your sugesstions and tried new things with my boyfriends dad and Win98 cds and upgrades and downloading drivers, and no luck.
I have given up. I will have to save some money up and take it to another tech, I guess.
But I wanted to tell you all thank you very much for all your effort and help. I do appericiate it.
Thanks again.
Amber Scott