Sound Card Disappears with Hyperthreading/Dual Core Enabled

Question

I have experienced the following symptoms with Hyperthreading/Dual Core enabled in BIOS: - Volume Control icon missing from System Tray -The sound card disappears from Device Manager - No sound card listed under the Audio tab of Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Reinstalling the audio drivers resolves the symptoms until the system is rebooted   Upon disabling Hyperthreading/Dual Core in BIOS setup, the sound card problems disappear.   We have 10 - Dimension 4600 systems, 5 or more which have displayed these symptoms. We have 2 - Latitude D620 systems,  and are purchasing 80 more, 1 of which has displayed this problem. We are running Windows XP SP2 with the latest updates, and all systems are using the onboard audio.

prangnekar · Answer

I got my lattitude d620 yesterday.  I have the same problem.  Sound settings show no sound card.  As a result, volume controls are defunct.  I get really annoying, shrill and lound PC speaker beep for every single alert (including new mail arrival).  This happens even though I assigned 'none' as a wave file for every single sound setting.   I wish to stop it as come Monday, I shall be getting 30+ mails per hour.  How do I stop this annoying audibly ear piercing beep from making me insane.

DELL-Jimmy P · Answer

NiSuS  Are you loading these systems from an image?

prangnekar · Answer

Yes, it has a corporate imager.  But, I found the solution for it on your forum.  The solution is to disable beep in the device manager by allowing to see hidden devices and selecting beep under non-plug and play devices.

NiSuS · Answer

prangnekar: How does that affect this problem?                    What thread, message?

NiSuS · Answer

Yes, Symantec Ghost.

DELL-Jimmy P · Answer

NiSuS

If the image you are using was created on an older system you may have the wrong HAL loading, starting with the D610-D810 and the newer Optiplex's the OS is using an APIC HAL, vs a PIC HAL used on previous systems.

Also if you have a mutiprocesser HAL you can't just turn Hyperthreading off because it won't switch back to a uniprocesser HAL, according to Microsoft you have to reinstall to get the correct HAL when you do that.

HAL options after Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Setup

I have had luck using the method below to change HAL's but like I said above Microsoft recommends reinstalling.

If you have a I386 folder on the hard drive from a command prompt type:

expand C:\"location of I386 folder"\Halaacpi.dl_ c:\"Windows installation folder"\system32\HAL.dll

This will overwrite the hal to APIC, you then reboot, it will find new hardware and ask you to reboot again.

If you have a mutiprocesser system or hyperthreading CPU Change Halaacpi.dl_ to Halmacpi.dl_

If you do not have the I386 folder on the hard drive you will need to extract the files from the installation CD.

Note: This method is not supported by Microsoft, is not guaranteed to resolve any specific issue and could very well leave you with a system that will not boot and need to be reinstalled anyway.

The steps above will replace a PIC HAL with an APIC HAL, if you use it on a system that does not support APIC you will have to reinstall.

NiSuS · Answer

We purchase 30-60 systems of the same model, same spec's, at a time.   I leave the Dell installed Windows XP Pro OS installed and do the Windows updates, install Office and updates, and other applications, ie. Adobe reader, Winzip, etc.   I then create an image of that system, and use it to image the rest of that system model.   Sometime later I may create an image from scratch, for a particular system model, reinstalling the Dell provided OS, drivers, updates, etc.   The Dimension 4700's began to exhibit the problem quite some time after they were fielded. I disable hyperthreading in the BIOS, and the sound reappears.   I am most concerned about the Latitude D620, we have about 60 of them being procured now.

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