Well, i came home one day and found my computer had restarted dude to a vista update. I logged on and did the usual thing, but the computer was doing the system beep like randomly and a lot so i restarted. windows had me go through the system repair and when i came back to log on, i realized i had no sound.

i have spent countless hours online with dell, talking to them about different ways to fix it, they even had me send it in before running an easy test to see if it was hardware, which it wasn't.

i get messages like no audio device installed and other things like that. i have reinstalled the drivers from dell, and have messed with different things and nothing has worked, but i feel like i can do so much more to try and fix it.

i really hope you guys here can help, i would really like to not have to reinstall vista over something this little yet important, i feel like i shouldn't have to although thats what dell was telling me.

i hope you guys can help!

System specs:
Dell Inspiron 6400
1.5 gb ram
160 gb harddrive

i dont know how to get the computer system specs that is usually posted, so if you guys could tell me how, i would be glad to post them, otherwise you will have to look it up yourself, sorry

My vista does not like the audio drivers I got off the motherboard site even though they are for vista. Every time I boot up it gives me a message that say the program "Realtech High Definition Audio" that was installed is not a valid vista program and I then click Cancel and it works fine. I suspect the drivers on your system first as vista has many issues with drivers. Check that the audio device is enabled in the BIOS and then go to the Dell site and do a thorough search for your drivers for vista. Vista comes in 32bit and 64bit so get the right one. You might like to post just what system you have and what vista you are running. Dell should have on their site a scann that you can do for the drivers online.
I guess you may have already done all this. Other than that, install a pci audio card that has vista compatible drivers with it.

i ran a test to check is it hardware, its not. i have tried reinstalling the vista audio driver. i have 32bit home basic. if i installed a pci audio card, could i completely bypass the problem? and not have to reinstall vista?

fixed it! i found on another forum this, and the answer to one of the most annoying things i have ever faced


i did that, restarded, bam! start up sounds come on, now im blasting out some music at 2 in the morning! ahhhhh, im so happy, hours of work, month without sound and staying up late to figure this out, and this was the answer

Glad you got it sorted

Marked as Resolved.

I tried the above i have windows vista home prem 32. well under "depends on" there was only one entry and that was the one that should be left, so I had none to delete.
However under services I had 001 and also 003 with allmost the same set of data. Is this a possible reason? This is so frustrating no sound and every thread i have read so far has yet solved it, gratz on the guy who fixed his