Have you reinstalled the drivers for your sound card?

do u know what the driver is called? is that on the hardware and driver installation cd?

The driver should be on that CD. Just load it up and the driver should be under "Audio Drivers". Click on it then click "Extract".

i have installed the audio driver, but the sound still isn't working. although, i do hear sounds when i get text boxes up on the screen. i just can't hear my dvds playing and i can't play any cds. i also don't have the sound icon on the bottom right of my computer task bar.

 

thanks

Open up your Sound Properties (Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices). Make sure "Place volume icon on the taskbar" is checked. Then click "Advanced" and make sure that the Mute boxes are not checked for anything and make sure that the volume sliders for CD Player, Wave, and Volume Control are not all the way at the bottom. If you do not see those volume sliders on the Volume Control, go to Options > Properties and check the necessary boxes. Click OK, close the Volume Control and click OK on Sound and Audio Devices.

Open up your Sound Properties (Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices). Make sure "Place volume icon on the taskbar" is checked. Then click "Advanced" and make sure that the Mute boxes are not checked for anything and make sure that the volume sliders for CD Player, Wave, and Volume Control are not all the way at the bottom. If you do not see those volume sliders on the Volume Control, go to Options > Properties and check the necessary boxes. Click OK, close the Volume Control and click OK on Sound and Audio Devices.

i can't do any of that... when i opened sounds and audio devices it said NO AUDIO DEVICE and i couldn't click on anything

Message Edited by starbucksfrappy on 07-03-2004 12:03 PM

This is the message i received when i tried to play a cd in window's media player.

There is no sound card
You either do not have a sound card installed on your computer or it is not functioning properly. If you do not have a sound card installed, you must install one before you can listen to audio in a digital media file. If you do have a sound card installed, refer to its documentation to troubleshoot the problem.
 
Error ID = 0x80040256, Remedy ID = 0x00000000

All I can suggest now is to refer to your documentation for troublesshooting. You could also search Dell Support for troubleshooting procedures.

I am having the same problem after installing windows xp professional on a inspiron 5000 laptop.  The sounds properties shows the device is working properly, I have tried the drivers from Windows update and also from ess (i think they are the same) with no luck at all.  I know the card works because I hear the windows opening noise, and closing noise, and a few clicks here and there when opening and closing dialog boxes.  But no other sounds, and all of the buttons/options/controls in the sounds property window are greyed out.  If anyone knows how to fix this please let me know.

thats the same thing going on here...