Wizard23

Hello everyone,

I've been at this for a week hours on end..i'm ready to throw the computer out! After encountering a virus...zlob and who knows what else through an active x install...my pc got messed up! After a few hours through safe mode, i was able to get rid of all the virus..i think...but upon my first reboot...out of many!...i got a popup next to my clock..it said new hardware detected...my sound card was there..creative 1371/1373..and also it said new hardware..pci to isa bridge installation. After this...i had no sound device detected. After a few days of searching, i was able to get a device detected but still got error messages from wmp..and when i tried to play a system sound from control panel-->sound devices--->sound tab...it said the file may be corrupt or use an unrecognized compression format. Hours later, i downloaded soundblaster pci..some driver i guess..and i no longer got any error messages..even in wmp, sound appeared to play..the bars were moving, but no sound through speakers. Cd's don't work either. In diagx..under sound test...i was getting an error on step 3 at first. When sound appeared to play with no sound coming through speakers..i was getting an error at step 19. I have tried driver after driver and nothing is working at all! I have a compaq ep/sb series, bios version 686t2, processor is intel 82443bx....on xp. If any other info is needed please ask...any and all help will be appreciated as tis computer seems to have reached the end of its use:(

Wizard23

Yikes...after quite a few hours...it seems i'm the only one with no response:) oh, btw, there are no conflicts or exclamation points or anything in device manager...hijackthis was clean as well. I threw the computer out this evening as 4 different sites were not able to help at all. After a week of searching and trying EVERYTHING do get sound back..it seems it was destroyed completely. No experts had any advice as to how to approach this.

Done_Fishin

HI Wiz
Sorry you decided to jack in before w had time to take a good look at what is going on .. I saw your post yesterday and marked it up for research and reply .. we can't be everywhere all the time .. we have jobs and lives to deal with too .. If you had waited til someone was available you would have had some answers like trying to do a repair install .. maybe even trying to do a new install on a second disk to see whether some of your files are corrupt or whether you have a board problem , perhaps the BIOs got corrupted and needed repair or re-configuration ..

Wizard23

Its not a big deal. I figured it simply couldn't be fixed. No one was able to give advice on any of the sites beyond the usual troubleshooting steps. I installed the card in a different pci slot...got the exact driver for the card...a ct4740 model with es1373 chipset, and still nothing. Sometimes i'd get an error message when trying to play a sound, sometimes no device was detected, and sometimes no error at all, sound seemed to play, but nothing was coming through the speakers. I tried to put the card in another pci slot as well and had the same results. This virus was crippling to say the least. i didn't have another hard disk to do any installations on. I tried to look for an updated bios but there wasn't one available. i guess the computer was too old and there was no support for it anymore..like its sound card...a discontinued model as well.

Codeman0013

Sorry to see you did that becuase you could have reformatted with windows if none of the above steps worked or gotten a cheap 20dollar card to try and test it. Please wait a little while next time we usually try to help just need a little time.

Done_Fishin

I have several old PC's .. going back to a 386 and worse pre windows Z80 .. unless there was a reason that you couldn't re-install windows .. like you had files that you wanted to keep .. a fresh install may have fixed your problem .. even after your Virus hit .. I am currently testing out a motherboard for a friend .. so I am using a Linux live CD to boot to see if it recognises all the hardware .. the sound card ( on-board) will also be tested using mp3's ... there are ways of testing things outside of the system .. just requires patience

Wizard23

I didn't want to reformat because i didn't want to lose my files. I transfered the few i wanted to keep to my other pc before getting rid of it. The headache of hours and hours and hours of research simply wasn't worth my time! The pc was a piece of junk anyway and wasn't worth all that energy. i thought it could be fixed in at most a couple hours..but after doing absolutely everything...short of reformatting...there was no procedure left to try. Patience is not my strong virtue lol...it's amazing i put up with it for over a week and at least 20+ hours of research!:)

Done_Fishin

you may not realise it but you probably learnt a lot during that time .. to you it may have seemed just like waste .. to me I understand that it was time invested with learning .. that's how I learnt to fix computers .. first by my own efforts .. then by searching the web .. even if you didn't get a result .. you invested .. and some will pay off in teh future ..
Hope you get a better deal nxt time .. personally I would have stuck it out to the end .. transferred the files then did a format re-install .. had only time to lose, a PC of some worth PLUS KNOWLEDGE ... to gain

Wizard23

Your absolutely right! I didn't meant to say it was a complete waste..i did learn quite a bit in my search! I also learnt about computers in this manner. I knew absolutely nothing about them until roughly 8 years ago. All i knew was how to turn it on and connect to the net:) After a few viruses, bugs and whatnot, i ended up having to learn something new all the time and since then have come a LONG way!:) I would have stuck it out with this as well..but it was p3 600mhz, 128 ram, 9gb hd. I took out the cables, network card, cd drive, and floppy drive...good for parts i guess. I don't even think it would have needed to be formatted...the problem i think came from when that pci to isa bridge hardware installation popup came on...it configured something somewhere. I went to device manager and deleted that from system devices after updating driver for the sound card failed. I may have come across the correct driver since, but maybe because this device was gone from the system (Pci to Isa bridge), the sound was not able to play.

Done_Fishin

one of the points I was trying to make,-- apart from the learning factor .. was that having found that you had already transferred the files you wanted .. you had nothing to loose from a last try at format and re-install .. even though your system appeared to be bug free, there are no guarantees .. I spent a month .. YES ONE WHOLE MONTH .. cleaning and restoring a friends PC after it got approx 12000 infections last Summer .. having made a backup on a spare drive on another PC .. 9 months later I got a warning about a new infected file .. in the backed up files ..

anyway .. sorry we were too late to help this time .. shame I never knew where you dumped the PC .. might have added it to my museum .. I also have a 466MHz, 766MHz, 800MHZ .. sitting idle due to the summer but useful as learning machines, for backup in case something goes wrong .. and part of my network ..

Wizard23

Its actually 'dumped' on my balcony:) I'm not able to put it in the garbage yet as it's too big and the garbage will only be picked up on friday:) The copy of windows xp i have on cd is apparently older than the version on that pc...so i didn't know if that too would cause an issue. I guess they can be sueful for testing purposes:)

Done_Fishin

a spare PC is always useful .
for trying to install a Linux distro .. or just booting a LIVE CD ..
a clean machine is useful for checking out possible infections on HDD's from other PC's
as a test bed for components that were in other PC's ..
Setting up and understanding LAN's

need I go on ..

not to mention the possibility that your PC goes lame .. and you need network access immediately .. to get answers to your problems .. how much would another PC be worth in those circumstances ..