I have a toshiba satellite laptop with windows xp and a yamaha ac-xg audio sound card built into it. I am unable to listen to music, any program i open to try listening to music(real, windows etc..) say it can not find a sound device, in the audio options in control panel it says there is no device, but in device manager it shows up and says it is working properly. I updated the driver for it and even flashed the bios and still it will not work. Any ideas? Thank you.

Are you sure it's actually turned on in BIOS? Gotta start somewhere :)

You know, it's interesting that you say that cause it appears that there is no bios setup on this system? It is model # 5100, and on the toshiba website it says to get into the bios hit either esc or F2, well i hit either and i try hitting every different F key, del, ctrl, alt.....and nothing will get into the setup, even after i flashed the bios. So i am not too sure what is going on there.

On most PC's or laptops I've had, you have to hit F8, but it has to be done on the initial boot screen. My suggestion is to immediately start hitting F8 repeatedly after you turn the laptop on, even if your screen is blank still. Rest assured, there is a BIOS on your machine, you just need to experiment a little on accessing it. If you are staring at the Windows screen, your machine has already progressed too far in startup for you to access your BIOS. My laptop is a generic Notebook which is ultimately made by Toshiba. A word to the wise, take it back to where ever it came from if you can.

Once your in the BIOS, look around for your on-board sound which is probably an AC 97 compatible card. Do yourself a favor and don't change anything else besides the sound card enable this time around.

Toshibas appear to use the F1 key to enter bios - try that (I wish everyone would stick to the same configuration, it would make life so much easier don't you think :D )
Another thing to try is (in an admin account) delete the sound device from device manager, reboot, and let the system autodetect it again. This works for most devices, and you should be prompted for any drivers if they are not present.
flashing the bios is scarey country -to be avoided like the plague unless absolutely necessary.

I made a mistake in saying that F8 was the access to BIOS. Actually on both my desktop and laptop, the DELETE key gets me into BIOS when depressed on the first boot screen.

Also, I agree with deddard about flashing the BIOS. There a few definite rules when attempting to flash BIOS.

1.) Always use the motherboard manufacturer's method of creating a recovery disk in case your new BIOS is corrupted somehow.

2.) Never flash your BIOS if you can't even access your BIOS.

3.) Never flash your BIOS if you notice that your PC is having ANY kind of trouble, unless that specific problem is mentioned in the release notes of the newer BIOS version.

Flashing your BIOS shouldn't be a scary chore, but unfortunately, motherboard manufacturers haven't made the process as stable as it should be. Just an FYI, if the BIOS flash goes bad and you didn't make some kind of recovery disk, you will need to send the motherboard back to the manufacturer, and in this case the entire laptop, so they can reprogram your EEPROM. I never had to do it myself yet, but I've only ever bought Asus Motherboards.

Not really what this post is about, but BIOS flashing is a favorite subject of mine. :)

I found out that this model of toshiba does not have a bios setup and that there is a utility within windows that toshiba has to set bios settings, i went into it and there are no options for audio at all. I am starting to be under the impression that my soundcard is no good, but i am confused as to why it shows up as good in device manager....thanks for the help so far.

Can you provide the exact model number here so I can look in the documentation as well? Or possibly a link to where you are finding this stuff? I wasn't able to find a 5100 model laptop by Toshiba. Thanks.

http://209.167.114.38/support/TechSupport/ln_TechSupport.htm#

Here is the link to the toshiba support site, under the technical support bulletins type in 000733 and it will take you to the bios info page, if you scroll down you will notice that it says that there is no bios program for a couple of models including the 5100. Hope this helps.