windows - sound driver "functional" but no device?

akashiraffee · 04-19-2009, 01:30 PM

I am actually a linux programmer who's trying to help my neighbour with her windows 2000 computer: the sound mysteriously went off. This is probably because the sound "device" listed under the device manager/in the control panel is a driver, which appears installed and functional, but when you click the volume tab, the volume is set to zero and cannot be moved because there is "no device attached".

I'm downloading some new drivers at home, since she only has a dial-up connection, and some tools to list the PCI devices directly, as there does not appear to be a native way to do this with windows. I think the audio device is actually a built in VIA thing, and can't rule out the possibility that it has just stopped working.

Anyway, I thought I'd ask around and see if someone could explain why a driver would be considered functional if it is not attached to a device and what I can (or more likely cannot) do to change that. The "troubleshooting" guide does not present this possibility as an option; it concludes by saying that if the driver is functional, there is nothing left to troubleshoot, and makes no mention of associating a device with a driver at all.

**TriggerFinger** · 04-21-2009, 01:18 PM

Have you checked in Device Manager if there are devices with yellow or red marks or under UNKNOWN?

04-19-2009, 01:30 PM	#1 (permalink)
akashiraffee Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 1 OS: linux, windows	windows - sound driver "functional" but no device? I am actually a linux programmer who's trying to help my neighbour with her windows 2000 computer: the sound mysteriously went off. This is probably because the sound "device" listed under the device manager/in the control panel is a driver, which appears installed and functional, but when you click the volume tab, the volume is set to zero and cannot be moved because there is "no device attached". I'm downloading some new drivers at home, since she only has a dial-up connection, and some tools to list the PCI devices directly, as there does not appear to be a native way to do this with windows. I think the audio device is actually a built in VIA thing, and can't rule out the possibility that it has just stopped working. Anyway, I thought I'd ask around and see if someone could explain why a driver would be considered functional if it is not attached to a device and what I can (or more likely cannot) do to change that. The "troubleshooting" guide does not present this possibility as an option; it concludes by saying that if the driver is functional, there is nothing left to troubleshoot, and makes no mention of associating a device with a driver at all.

04-21-2009, 01:18 PM	#2 (permalink)
TriggerFinger Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: USA Posts: 11,846 OS: Vista SP1, XP SP3, PCLinuxOS2007	Re: windows - sound driver "functional" but no device? Have you checked in Device Manager if there are devices with yellow or red marks or under UNKNOWN? __________________ DBAN - Memtest86+ - BartPE - Linux LiveCD - ImgBurn - HDD Diags - Disk Copy HOW TO BURN AN ISO FILE