Halligan

Have a custom AMDAthlon 64 with Asus AN8-Socket 939 motherboard. It has 2 Western Digital HDs and an Audigy 2ZS Sound Blaster card. I'm running XP Pro dual boot in the HDs. The D drive is essentially a mirror of the C drive with minor differences. The C drive was the original as built by my friend. I am now trying to make the D drive the primary one with C as a bootable backup in case D gets sick..

The problem is that there is and isn't sound on the D drive. Boot up- not a peep. Go to device mgr, check for yellow question mark or red X's--none. Everything says all devices are working properly. Go thru Windows troubleshoot and no help. Everything shows as working fine.
So I uninstall the Audigy sound card drivers, then re-install the card (control panel-install hardware) and re-install the drivers and presto, all the sound I could want. Windows sounds, play music CDs, listen to internet radio. Everything is fine until I re-boot. As I exit Windows, the familiar Windows musical exit fanfare sounds. Then we go thru the boot up, the Windows splash screen appears, then the "Welcome" screen and as it cuts to the desktop, a feeble musical fanfare starts to sound, but quickly dribbles away as if someone had quickly cranked a volume nob to the "off" position. After that, we are back to no sounds whatsoever. I can repeat the process above with uninstall and re-install drivers and get sound back, but re-booting will kill it. HOWEVER, there is no problem if I boot into the C drive. That drive runs sound just fine no matter how many times I reboot into it.

I've tried to find the difference between the two drives but haven't been able to. I'm up to date with SP3 in both drives with all undates. I looked for KB888111 as Haggis95 suggested, but it's not in my system, yet the C drive sound is fine. I've gone to startup and disabled all the programs, but no success. I suspect somehow the D drive Registry has a glitch in it that is killing the sound card as it boots, but find the Registry daunting and don't like messing with it without some solid advice. Does anyone have an idea of what I can do to find this bug?

Pauldo

Your not going to find UAA drivers (microsoft's knowledge base article is title 888111, kb888111) on your machine because they are for onboard HD audio.

As for your dual boot, have you tried running a program like CCleaner?

One other thing to look at when the sound goes out go to start ->run and type services.msc. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for Windows Audio. Is it Started?

Pauldo

Halligan

Thanks, Pauldo, for the info. The audio service has been on automatic right along. I also have onboard audio which should be disabled. Perhaps it is on the C drive (the computer builder probably fixed it). Perhaps it isn't properly disabled on the D drive. How could I check? Device mgr?

I just read about CCleaner a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps it's time to get it and use it. Thank again for the tip.

Halligan

Pauldo

Ya, check in Device Manager for Realtek.

Have you looked in Control Panel >> Sounds and Audio devices >> Audio tab to see if your Creative card is the default playback device? Not that it would help the problem but it might help in pinpointing what is going on if it is switching to something else.

Check your volumes too, while you are in there. Creative sometimes has problems keeping the volume up. You'd think they would want it the other way around .

Pauldo

Halligan

Been there and done all that. Many times, in fact, hoping to find a mute box checked or something simple like that. Cranked the volume sliders all the way up, but not a peep from speakers. Went all the way thru the Windows Troubleshooter without a hint of what is going on.

It has to be a registry entry or a line in a boot/startup file that shuts it down as the desktop screen appears. I used to be pretty good at messing with config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get DOS or early Windows to do what I wanted. But I haven't kept up with the technology and don't understand much about contemporary Windows. The sound seems to die just as the "Welcome" window cuts to the desktop image. If I could pinpoint what is happening internally to Windows at that point, I could probably fix it. Hoping someone out there can make a suggestion with a focus on that point.
Thanks for your suggestions and your time.

Halligan

Pauldo

Very rarely is it the default playback device being incorrect or volumes low but you didn't mention it so I thought I would ask.

Have you looked at the Event viewer?

Start >> Run >> type in eventvwr and hit enter.

I would look in System but you might get some info from Application as well.

You are looking for any red 'X' Error entries. There are also yellow '!' entries. Double click on these and it will give you a description. If you have any, post the event ID and what the description says (unless you are able to find out the problem yourself).

Pauldo

Halligan

I didn't know about that tool (Event viewer). A quick look shows several yellows and reds. I'll work with it today and see if I can figure it out myself. If not, I'll post. Thanks

Halligan

For anyone following this thread with the hope of learning something, all I can do is quote Ron White (the comedian, not the computer columnist), "You Can't Fix Stupid".

I got in touch with my friend who built my box and he suggested I re-stall the Creative driver package. Duh! What package? I set up the drivers thru Device Mgr and Hardware Install, but never installed any Creative program! What an idiot! I actually had the program on my HD in my "program backups" file, but didn't recognize the name and thus never installed it. So I've been trying to fix this "problem" by reinstalling the drivers and messing with the registry when all it required was the proper installation of a simple program. Like trying to start a fire with flint and steel when you have a Bic lighter in your pocket.

Thanks to Pauldo for wasting your time with me. The sound card really didn't need fixing--I need fixing so I don't reproduce any idiot children. I'm going to send a donation for wasting people's time.

Halligan

Pauldo

That's OK. President Obama has a plan for people like you.

http://www.earthfrisk.com/blog/?p=130

Seriously, it's more often than not a situation just like this.

Glad you got it working!

Pauldo