Audio not working! Help!

[armanditoh]

Hello there,
The audio was working perfectly a few weeks ago, but it suddenly stopped. I thought it was the drivers, so I re-downloaded them and tried to install, but after a few seconds of it showing the "Initializing application" thing, an error pops up that says "ERROR: Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the MEDIA device for this driver" or "ERROR: Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the device for this driver".

Also, the taskbar icon shows a red X over the sound thing, and it says "No Audio Output Device installed" when the mouse is left over it. In the "Playback" and "Recording" tabs, it shows there's none installed, although this computer has an in-built mic too.

Yesterday, I thought it had gotten fixed, because the sounds was working again! I didn't really do anything. I was on the bios configuration thing, and I clicked the Delete button by mistake, and it went "BEEP". It was weird, but I didn't look into it, and I didn't actually do anything in the BIOS. So, I restarted, and the sound was back, and the X on the taskbar Volume icon was gone.

Weird thing happened, though. It stopped working all of a sudden while I was listening to some music. I freaked out, obviously. I went ahead and restarted, and it came back. But then it happened again, a few hours later. I turned it off, and turned it on again the next day (today). It didn't come back. So, I tried restarting again, but it didn't work either.

I really don't know what to do. What do you guys need me to tell you about the computer so that you can help me?

(Compaq Presario F700 (F756LA) with genuine Windows 7 Ultimate x64)

 

[TrainableMan]

Hopefully it is the drivers. Do you allow automatic updates? Disable the "treat recommended updates the same as critical" - you may have gotten a bad driver update this way.

It appears W7 is not even supported by Compaq for that laptop. And when I go to their site all I see for Vista 64 is the HP update program so I can't really tell what the proper driver is.

If it isn't drivers then your audio hardware may be failing which wouldn't be good at all. Pretty much your option there would be expensive repairs or using an external USB sound card.

 

[armanditoh]

Well, I don't believe it's drivers. I've had this computer for about 4 years, and ever since 7 came out, I bought it and installed it here. Never had a problem with it 'til now.
Does this mean I'm dead?

 

[TrainableMan]

Computer issues boil down to one of two things. Software problems or hardware problems.

Hardware problems tend to be more expensive to resolve and though it's possible your hardware has failed I would encourage exhausting the software possibilities first.

Your computer was working fine and then suddenly it did not. You never answered my question, do you allow for windows automatic updates? And do you allow it to treat recommended updates the same as critical? If so then it is possible that drivers were updated with incorrect replacements; it happens to people quite often. If you know when it was the sound stopped working properly you can even check
Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update\View update history
and see if any Recommended updates were installed just prior.

Things you might try:
If you go to Control Panel\Device Manager you can go to your sound and open it's properties. In Driver tab try "rollback driver" and if it allows it then reboot and see what happens.

If you actually have the driver that you had been using when the system works then you can also try installing and then using Driver Sweeper (Use in safe mode) to remove the audio driver and then install the one you have.

You could install and try Device Doctor and see if it recognizes any drivers that need updated. Now just like Windows Update, Device Doctor is also not perfect so if you use it I recommend you always create a restore point prior to its' use and then to only allow one driver to be updated per use, rebooting after each. If your system should fail to boot then in safe mode simply use the restore point to recover and then skip that driver.

Note: If any of these work, then be sure to change the Windows update settings so drivers will not again be replaced by a Recommended update (uncheck the box).

 

[Nibiru2012]

This model uses the Conexant HD-Audio SmartAudio 221 Driver

The crappy thing about this is that Conexant refuses to supply drivers independent of the computer makers.

PC Audio Support - Windows® 7 Conexant develops audio solutions that are used in a wide range of products including personal computers. We provide customized audio drivers to our customers, which include major computer manufacturers globally. At the request of these manufacturers, Conexant does not provide end-user support or drivers for PC audio products. If you have an issue with the audio configuration in Windows 7, please contact the manufacturer of your computer.

Then the notebook maker doesn't update their drivers for Windows 7, because HP decides it is time for the end-user to purchase a new notebook computer!

That is VERY poor support IMHO, and no wonder many end-users are disliking HP so much these days.

I understand you can download the Vista driver "executable" and then decompress it with WinRAR. Then direct the driver update feature in Windows 7 to the specific folder with the drivers in it.

Force the driver to install:

1. Download and run the Conexant Audio Software .exe for your operating system to extract the drivers and application.
2. Open Device manager and expand the Sound, video and game controllers section.
3. Right click on Either the High Definition Audio Device if you have the generic Microsoft drivers, or the Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221 if you have older Conexant drivers and choose "Update Driver Software..."
4. Click Browse my computer for driver software, then click "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
5. Click "Have Disk..." then Browse to the folder where the drivers were extracted, by default this is C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO\V64 for 64-bit Vista, C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO\V32 for 32-bit Vista and C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO\XP32 for 32-bit XP. Click OK.
6. If there are multiple different Conexant Audio Devices available, you might have to do some trial and error to find out which one is best. The goal is to end up with a working microphone and SPDIF output in your playback devices as well as working speakers and headphones.
7. Click Next, and you're done.

Install the SmartAudio II Application:

1. Run C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO\SAII\Setup.exe
2. Wait for installation to complate, there are no prompts and the installation just disappears.
3. Access the SmartAudio II Application through Control Panel, or at C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\SAII

 

[armanditoh]

I was trying to do what Nibiru said, but hey, guess what: I couldn't find anything about High Definiton Audio or Conexant. What does this mean?

There's nothing with a yellow exclamation sign there. Frustrating.

 

[TrainableMan]

In Device Manager, go up to view ... show hidden devices

If it's still not there then it has been uninstalled, which is fine because you WANT to install it.

 

[armanditoh]

Ok, then. Just checked, it's not installed. But how do I install it then, if the driver thing says there's no device blah blah blah?

 

[TrainableMan]

Go to C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO\V64 and look for an .INF file (if you have known extensions hidden you may need to change that setting if you can't find an INF file) or possibly an .EXE program. You double click on it to run it.

I don't have this software so if you can't find one of these then take a screenshot of the folder so I can see what files are in there.

 

[armanditoh]

I didn't even get to the DRIVERS folder.

SWSETUP:

 

[TrainableMan]

Did you even download and run the exe from Compaq? That's the first step Nibs mentioned, you have to get it from HP and run it.

If you haven't done that then you may as well just try Device Doctor and see if it finds an audio driver for you.

 

[armanditoh]

That's the first thing I did, hahaha!

I thought it was the drivers, so I re-downloaded them and tried to install, but after a few seconds of it showing the "Initializing application" thing, an error pops up that says "ERROR: Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the MEDIA device for this driver" or "ERROR: Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the device for this driver".

I'm gonna try out the Device Doctor, then. Update when done.

 

[armanditoh]

Ok, so I installed the driver I downloaded through Device Doctor (High Definition Audio Device, under Sound, video and game controllers). The installation process went well. I restarted, and noticed I still had no sound, so I opened up Device Doctor again, and the driver was there again. What happened? Did it not get installed?

Also, it still doesn't show up in the Device Manager.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Just out of curiosity, did you check your BIOS and see if the audio device perhaps may be disabled there?

Believe or not, that sometimes will happen without any thing that you have done.

 

[armanditoh]

I've checked the BIOS several times, I didn't even find anything that had to do with audio, multimedia, or anything around those lines. What do you think I should check?

 

[armanditoh]

As you can see in the next screenshot, I've checked out every one of the Presario F700 family of laptops, none of them have W7 drivers, to try them out, maybe they would work on mine.

They didn't. Not even for one of them.

Those guys at HP reeeeally want us to buy new computers.

 

[TrainableMan]

Device Doctor said you have 12 drivers to update. It is possible one of those is a bus driver or something similar that actually allows communications to your sound. Try installing the other drivers one at a time, taking a checkpoint before each and rebooting after each install. End with trying the sound again.

 

[TrainableMan]

This is generally assumed but I will throw this out there - you are logged on as an administrator and running Device Doctor with administrative privileges, right?

 

[armanditoh]

Yes, of course I am, haha.

I'll try what you said. Update when done.

 

[TrainableMan]

Don't forget, one at a time. That way if you reboot and something doesn't work right you can reboot into safe mode and restore to the checkpoint (and then, of course, skip that update from then on).