Howdy all,

I recently set up a WinXP install on my computer and have been using it for my primary OS... Since I set it up I have not had sound... The sound was working fine on my Win2K and WinME installs, but it won't work on WinXP... I have a yellow exclamation mark on C-Media AC97 Audio Device in Device Manager and it says "This device cannot start (Code 10)" in Properties for that entry... I ran troubleshooting without benefit and reinstalled the drivers... I am not sure what I can try next other than buying a sound card... This is onboard sound and presumably it is okay since it works in the other installs... Also, it is supposed to be WinXP compatible...

Any ideas for a next step to take would be appreciated...

I did a Google search with "This device cannot start (Code 10) C-Media AC97" and came up with about 5220 hits.

I don't know if this link (http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=123&page=1&pp=10) and the associated link in Post 1 will work, but might be worth a shot. Of all the pages I searched, I saw this method listed a least a couple of times. Don't know if it will work, but who knows?

There's several suggestions in the link Poppy found but I'd like to add one more.

That is to remove the sound device in Device Manager and then try reinstalling the drivers. I'd do that prior to trying the registry hack and BIOS update suggestions in that link.

it is also possibe if you are using the original drivers disk that you'd need to download the latest ones to be compatible with XP.

I ended up using an idea on a Google search and reinstalled the driver from the original motherboard install disk... It appears that the sound chip is actually Avance and that Windows misidentified it... I am not sure I use the right sound driver from the disk, but the sound is working... Thanks for the ideas, it helped with sorting this out...