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General discussion

No sound, can't install sound card driver

by newatthis Dec 26, 2004 8:19AM PST

Hello, I have recently installed Windows 98 SE on my computer and don't have any sound. It showed my sound card in the device manager, but there were no playback devices listed under Multimedia in the Control Panel.

Now, after trying to uninstall and reinstall the sound card driver many times, I do not show the sound card listed in the device manager, and I have not been able to get a playback device to show in Multimedia no matter what I have tried:

changing Bios configuration under Audio from Auto to Enabled to Disabled to Auto

uninstalling and reinstalling driver and updated drivers

reinstalling Multimedia in Windows 98

I am contemplating reformatting my hard disk drive and reinstalling Windows "from scratch", but I'm not sure what to do differently this time from the last time I did this.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Operating system: Windows 98 SE
Sound card: Realtek AC'97
HP Pavilion computer converted from Windows XP to Windows 98 SE
40 GB hard disk drive currently partitioned, with Windows 98 SE in a 7.85 GB partition at the beginning of the drive

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1 Posts

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There's the clue!

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Dec 26, 2004 8:31AM PST

"HP Pavilion computer converted from Windows XP to Windows 98 SE"

Some HP computers that came with XP have NO WINDOWS 98 driver. You would use one from hp.com (click on the drivers link), but a few and even moreso now will never see a Windows 98 driver.

The fix is to disable the onboard audio and install a sound card with 98 drivers.

Bob

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