Re: Inspiron 1501 Headaches

"S.Lewis" <Gossamer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jMwMj.23279$%15.13456@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Bill Hileman" <discgolfdad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0DqMj.6855$DY1.3599@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I bought a pair of Inspiron 1501 laptops for my 10-year-old sons last year
(warranty has just expired recently). The Windows Update feature never
worked in that time span, but searches on the net for solutions pretty
much came up empty, so I didn't bother with that until recently. The
solution for that turned out to be using the O/S DVD and selecting
"upgrade" It took three hours of that, and another two hours of
downloading/installing 50 updates (93 MB) on both machines, and finally
that problem was (obviously) resolved. However, in the process, it has
disabled the audio devices on both machines. The system tray icon has the
wonderful red "X" and the tooltip says "no audio device installed." Going
to the device manager says it's installed and "working properly." I've
tried everything I can think of, including installing the drivers from the
drivers DVD, removing and auto-detecting, going directly to Dell's support
site and downloading/installing their drivers, all come out with the exact
same result. Nothing.

There was one KB article on the Dell site about this, specifically. It
said that after installing an "upgrade" and rebooting, that the sound
icon in the system tray would be disabled. Their solution? Simply go to
device manager and re-enable. Great! Except that it's not disabled in
device manager. Clearly something the upgrade did caused this on both
machines.

I was also having firewall problems with Windows Live OneCare but finally
got that straightened out with their firewall repair tool, so now the
ONLY thing wrong with these two laptops is the audio.

If anyone can help point me in the right direction, I would be eternally
grateful.

Bill "You can't get there from here" Hileman




That's a mess, especially now after the upgrade. I assume both are running
XP?

You might try reinstalling the chipset drivers and cpu drivers for S&G,
and then once again re-installing the audio drivers:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&ServiceTag=&SystemID=INS_PNT_1501&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=

-OR-

http://tinyurl.com/2lz973

I'm concerned by your WinUpdate comments prior to the "OS upgrade" and
what that really means. Vista? Repair install of WinXP? Either of those
scenarios could hose things up a bit.

Since they're the kid's machines, you do have a complete factory image
restore option if you reached that point of frustration, but you'd have to
reinstall any apps/games they might have.

Since both are showing the same symptom (which is actually a good thing),
I'm guessing it's something unique to the AMD architecture of those
notebooks. Re-installing the chipset, CPU, and then audio drivers
shouldn't hurt a thing if I'm wrong (and shouldn't take much time to
attempt).

I appreciate the response, Stew. I finally managed to figure it out. I
started all this Friday night and burned the midnight oil. Spent the better
part of yesterday and most of today, and finally have everything fixed.

Both machines are running Vista, by the way. The "trick" to fix the Windows
Update bug was to re-install the O/S using the "Upgrade" option.
Unfortunately, that fix broke the audio. I found the MS KB that addressed
it, and apparently it had to do with the fact the SigmaTel uses .ini files
instead of .inf files, which causes problems when you update. The KB did
not offer a solution other that "ask your OEM for help" (mostly because
SigmaTel doesn't even support their own products, they write them for OEM's.

Persistent googling produced a major clue, however.

Apparently to "uninstall" a device driver, one should NOT use the device
manager (as one would think) but instead use add/remove programs.

That FINALLY did the trick. That and then re-installing their latest
driver.

Now everything is finally working... the Windows Update, the Windows Live
OneCare firewall (after running their firewall repair) and now the audio as
well, whew.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: sound devices
    ... Remove them from the Device Manager and let Windows find the drivers. ... sound and audio devices then select audio codecs properties and all the ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Inspiron 1501 Headaches
    ... Going to the device manager says it's installed and "working properly." ... I've tried everything I can think of, including installing the drivers ... now the ONLY thing wrong with these two laptops is the audio. ... the Windows Update, the Windows Live ...
    (alt.sys.pc-clone.dell)
  • Re: Error Code 39 on DVD & CD drives - tried all previous suggesti
    ... file 'asms' on Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 1 CD is needed" error. ... do a Repair setup to replace the drivers from the original copy. ... Uninstalled devices through Device Manager, ... Changes to reinstall them ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: no sound
    ... Try this, open device manager again. ... Audio on it, and select remove, now reboot. ... should reinstall the drivers for them. ... > Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Both CD Rom drives dissapeared
    ... > They do show up in post, and in device manager, but have conflicts. ... > windows did recognize them at start up and said it loaded the drivers. ... no CD rom drives show in MY computer. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)