Douglas has tried a couple of reinstalls of XP but just can’t get the audio on his notebook working. I’d recommend looking for a driver on the actual computer or motherboard manufacturers website. Most of them supply the lastest drivers on their suport sections. There has to be a compatible driver somewhere. If you’ve installed an additional sound card make sure there’s a driver for this too or the computer is not trying to use this by default. It is possible however that the audio hardware is corrupt or damaged somehow. See if it appears in your Device Manager under Control Panel.
Dave is hearing a guitar riff constantly repeating when he turns on his PC and doesn’t know where it’s coming from or how to shut it off! It almost sounds too weird to not be a virus so do a scan first off. I’d then recommend going into the system sound settings and either turning off sounds or having a look to see if this sound is assigned to a system event like startup. Maybe a previous owner set it up? To get into system sounds on XP go to Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices – System Sounds.
Phil can’t see sites in Firefox or Internet Explorer but is connected to the web. Make sure you’re not in “Work Offline” mode for a start! Next obvious step is to ensure your firewall is not blocking any browsers or networks. You may also be the victim of a browser hijack so do a full scan in safe mode with a good, updated security suite and anti-virus program.
Greg’s PC is freezing for 3/4 minutes at a time. I’m guessing that because you’re using an old operating system that your PC is also old!? Maybe it’s just on it’s last legs.. Apart from that the usual rules apply for slow/freezing computers. Check the following:
- Do a virus/spyware scan with a decent updated program.
- Do a registry cleanup with appropriate software.
- Start your PC in Safe mode to see if it still freezes, if not that would suggest software problems so…..
- Get rid of unused programs and do a disk cleanup.
- Do a disk error check in the properties tab of your main hard drive.
- Check you’re not running out of hard drive space.
- Check your Cooling fans are still working (CPU may be overheating).
- Try a RAM or CPU upgrade.
Arif installed Vista on his previously XP based system and now the rear (PCI) sound card doesn’t work but the front (integrated) one does. The obvious problem is that your rear sound card needs new Vista drivers. Vista drivers may be available by default for your onboard sound card but not all additional PCI sound cards will be supported by default. You will need to find out the manufacturer of your rear sound card and download the latest Vista drivers from their support section if they even have any.