[djknep]

I recently installed a NIC card on my Compaq Presario 5461 ; running Windows 98 with onboard sound. I have now lost my sound.

Windows does not detect any sound device. I have tried deleting the NIC driver and letting PC boot without it, but to no avail. I also restored the sond driver and this did not work.

There are no hardware conflicts that I can see. I have let Windows try to detect new hardware and it doesn't find the onboard sound. I don't think I damaged the motherboard. Would think that everything would have blown, not just sound.

I have heard of others having similar issues. The following suggestions have been:

* Reformat - No my first choice
* Remove physical NIC card and reboot without it to see if this fixes the problem - I am okay with this, but it doesn't help solvethe real issue. I ultimately need the NIC card installed for DSL.
* Buy a seperate sound card an install it - Does this make sense?

Help please!

 

[DJ Specs]

Well, thats odd that your sound is gone because of the installation of a NIC. And no problems anywhere you can see. So, have you tried going into the BIOS and checking the setting there? Usually it has an option to disable/enable onboard sound. You should check there to make sure it hasnt somehow changed. Then maybe it should says enabled, switch to disable and reboot. Take a look around in windows. Then restart and go back into the BIOS, and enable it again, restart. See if this makes any difference.

 

[Guest]

Physically remove the nic.

Start the computer in safe mode. It should be F8

Go to device manager.

Remove any nic's that are there.

Also remove any sound devices that are there.

Shutdown.

Boot up and it should find and install the sound drivers, If not install them manually.

Is this system running with plug & play OS enabled in the bios?