Sound card malfunction

[eeerrrrr]

How do i restore sound to my computer when there appears to be a sound card problem?

 

[Saga Lout]

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums.

If the sound card is integrated into your motherboard, an extra PCI card will do the trick if you have a spare slot. You can also buy external USB powered sound devices which saves having to open up the case.

If the problem is only the lack of a driver, find it in Device manager and click to update it - Windows might be able to fix it.

 

[Saga Lout]

Now one of your other threads shows it to be a laptop, forget the PCI card - it won't fit. An external is only worth buying if you don't cart your laptop around very often. Stick with trying the driver option - go to Toshiba's website and put the model number into a search box.

 

[eeerrrrr]

Yes i have a laptop. I did what you said and tried installing a new driver but it keeps coming up with:

There was a problem installing this hardware:

("Realtek High Definition Audio" but it does this with all sound devices i have tried to uninstall and reinstall)

Windows cannot load the device driver for this software. The driver may be corrupt or missing. (Code 39)


Also, there is always a yellow explanation mark beside all sound device under device manager.

I'm so lost!! I miss my music

 

[Saga Lout]

Sound problems are difficult to diagnose remotely in a Forum like Tom's. Thee external device suggestion is out because you would also need speakers and you wouldn't want to tote that lot around with you. My only remaining shot is to find the Hardware entry in Control panel>Sound and Audio Devices to make sure it is actually the Realtek your driver fits. There should be a list in there under the Driver tab with around a dozen entries.

 

[eeerrrrr]

Are the dozen entries under the driver details? And how do i tell if it is what my driver fits?

 

[Saga Lout]

Go to Realtek's own site and find a download for a file WDM_R221.exe. If it doesn't do any good, at least it won't do any harm either. In that case, try the WDM_R225.exe.

 

[eeerrrrr]

I did what you said and downloaded both files but it hasn't changed anything. this problem has been happening since i downloaded a new AVG and removed some viruses. There is still a yellow explanation mark beside Realtek High Definition Audio under my device manager. Do you know what is wrong with my computer? Do you need anymore information?

 

[Saga Lout]

Do you know what is wrong with my computer? Do you need anymore information?

I'm afraid I don't know. Al l i can suggest is that you remove it completely - if it's an add-on card - and restart Windows without it then shut down and refit it and start up again, allowing Windows reinstall it afresh.

 

[eeerrrrr]

Where do i find the add-on card?

 

[Saga Lout]

Belay that suggestion - I just re-read the thread and found it's a laptop and that puts me out of ideas because it's embedded into the motherboard.

All I can suggest is you uninstall it in Device Manager, remove all those drivers in that list manually and any reference to the Realtek device in c:\windows\inf (usually a hidden folder). Restart and see if a fresh installation works any better.