Audio drivers gone? Dell Inspiron 6400

I thought I did, but it didn't ask me for my service tag...I'm doing it now, will keep you posted THANKS!!

I had downloaded and installed the RECOMMENDED ONE :

Creative Labs Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio, v.RC6, 44.1K A02

And re-started my computer...didn't work. Then after you suggested it, I found and entered the service tag, and downloaded and installed an OPTIONAL ONE :

SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio, v.5.10.0.5515_RC22-WHQL, A11

(Driver)

And to my surprise, my computer restarted with the sound...don't know why the optional one worked and the recommended didn't, but anyway...thanks for your help! Cheers !

Right .a sigmatel.

Thanks so much and I'll definitely be back if I have an issue.

Cheers!

Hi soulwaves2000,

You're welcome. Have a good one.

I had downloaded and installed the RECOMMENDED ONE : Creative Labs Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio, v.RC6, 44.1K A02 And re-started my computer...didn't work. Then after you suggested it, I found and entered the service tag, and downloaded and installed an OPTIONAL ONE : SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio, v.5.10.0.5515_RC22-WHQL, A11 (Driver) And to my surprise, my computer restarted with the sound...don't know why the optional one worked and the recommended didn't,

The Dell web site is not very well thought out(for a computer company). You have to have an interpreter sometimes to understand their special meanings for words.

Where the page says that a driver is "recommended", "optional" or "urgent",  that only applies to a situation where you already have an older version of the driver on your computer and you desire advice on whether or not to update to a newer version of it. However Dell does not explain what those terms mean and so they just confuse people. 

Since you did not previously have the Creative software on your computer then the "recommended" term did not apply to you.

Where the page says that the Sigmatel audio driver is "optional", that means that if you have the older version of the driver and your audio is working okay, then Dell thinks it is not important for you to get the latest version. (The newest driver added a function called "stereo mix" that the previous versions of the driver lacked.) However your audio was not working so in your case it was not "optional" but necessary that you installed the driver.

The audio hardware on all the Dell laptops back when yours was made was a Sigmatel audio chip. If you were running Windows XP then the Sigmatel driver was not optional in the normal sense of the word. You could not get audio unless you installed the Sigmatel driver. (In the case of Vista there was a native driver that worked good enough to produce basic audio.)

The Creative software was an optional purchase that was an add-on to enhance the sound of the audio produced by the Sigmatel hardware. It was always "optional" in the normal sense of the word. You do not need it for your laptop to produce audio. The way you could buy it back in the day was you installed the software from Dell's site, then that directed you to Creative's site where you paid for a license to unlock it.

To sum up, Dell means "optional" and "recommended" to apply to people who already have a necessary driver and are updating it to a newer version. Dell no longer produces new drivers for those old laptops but the confusing terminology remains on the driver page.

Ok thanks for the info. But there's no way for a person to really know what to do if their sound goes out, unless they're a computer programmer or smth....?!

But there's no way for a person to really know what to do if their sound goes out

I wrote the "No Audio" FAQ to help folks when in that situation. It is meant to show anyone with some knowledge of computers the logical path to follow in order to diagnose the symptom of no audio.

Hello Kalyan, I'm having a problem with Format factory, do you know this program?  It used to hardcode my subtitles, but no longer does it. I enter the srt file into the "additional subtitles" box, but nothing. It no longer does it. Going crazy here...:(

Hi soulwaves2000,

I have personally never used Format Factory. While I was researching about the issue, I came across the following links which might be of some help:
http://bit.ly/19v4nKZ
http://bit.ly/16MZI17

Hope this helps!