Do you know if your PC has an onboard soundcard or if it has a PCI soundcard? If it has a seperate soundcard just google search that model followed by the word 'Drivers' and you'll find what your looking for. If it's onboard, then windows should have installed it when it was installed, if not boot in safe mode and delete any audio drivers it already has in the device manager, then search for new devices, it should find the audio device and self-configure the drivers. Also, upgrade to at least service pack 1. I don't reccomend Service Pack 2.

How do I find out if I have onboard or PCI sound card? I can't take the cover off, because it has a warranty lock, if I take it off, warranty will dissappear. And in Device Manager it doesn't say if it's PCI or onboard...

Also I don't know how to access Safe Mod on Dell computers. Usually it's F8 or F12, but neither of those two work on my pc. It enters BIOS when I press those buttons...

After many hours of searching the net, I found a way to find what sound card I have. If you type "dxdiag" in "Run" and go to Sound tab, it will tell you what sound driver is installed. In my case it doesn't, so it's definetlly not installed. And I have one error in Device Manager on PCI Device, so I figured out that I have a PCI Sound Card. But I still can't find any...

I emailed Dell Support, but no reply yet.

When I install some of the Dell sound drivers, it gives me an error that operating system is wrong. Is it possible that some sound drivers are only made for Windows XP Home and not for Windows XP Pro? Since I bought Home edition and now I have Pro edition installed...

Please help me, I can't live without sound...

Since I had nothing to do, I decided to format C again and install Win XP Home SP2. When I did I have successfully managed to install all drivers, including Sound, which means that drivers which Dell gave me only support Home edition. That's just nonsense... I don't want Home edition, I want Pro, but there's no sound driver for Pro.... that's just stupid...

I was reading your post and have been struggling with the no audio problem after a windows xp pro was put on my dell dimension 2350.  I saw where you'd formatted c and reinstalled home.  I tried going in and deleting the partition for the existed xp pro and it won't allow it.  I'm not a programmer of any sort.  And I've printed up so much stuff on it till my head hurts and my ink has run out.  Can you tell me how you were able to accomplish it?  Possibly in simple terms that a blonde can understand?

Here's my system config-

Operating System- Windows XP Professional (5.1 build 2600)

System Manufacturer & Model- Dell Dimension 2350

BIOS- Phoenix AwardBIOS v.6.00PG

Processor- Intel Celeron CPU 1.80GHz

Memory- 254RAM

DirectX Version- 9.0b (4.09.0000.0902)

Soundcard- It came with an integrated one called SoundMAX, but in a desperate attempt to get beyond this problem I installed a Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit, and updated driver to v.5.12.1.314 from Creative's Website.  Again, nothing works!

 

Message Edited by bigsistr on 08-13-2005 02:25 PM

I don't understand why u want to change from XP Pro to XP Home. XP Pro is much better, coz u can turn anything u don't want off, but it's ur choice...

Also if ur XP Home CD is not bought from Dell, sound drivers will probably not work at all just as in my situation. I called Dell Support to ask them what I should do, and they said that if I want to install sound drivers on XP Pro, I will have to buy a new version of XP Profrom them, coz their drivers r not compatible with other manufacture's version of Windows. It's very complicated, even I didn't get it properly. It's just the way Dell operate...

But if u still want to continue, here's what u should do:

It sounds as if u r trying to format partition which has windows installed. It won't let u do that. What u have to do is boot from ur XP Home CD and when first menu appears press R to repair Windows. Then u will see DOS command. There u type: "format C:" (C if it's the partition on which Windows is installed)(without quotes). Formatting will start. It will take a few minutes. Then u restart pc and install a fresh copy of Windows XP Home on empty partition, which u just formatted...

When u will be installing fresh copy of Windows, u will notice that there r two more hidden partitions on ur pc, they r the partitions where Dell put a backup of all drivers and if u don't delete those two partitions, u would be able to restore ur pc to the way it was when u boght it...

I hope that's clear. I tried to explain everything in detail as easy as possible...