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Hi...
Yesterday I came home and turned on my computer and it said it was installing new hardware... Well I said ah thats cool, someone in my household must have installed something while I was gone.

The updating/installing of new hardware failed.. It was unable to find a file which had PCI in the name. That would be my sound card right?

Well anyways... I run the computer as if nothing happened. Well the computer is running real slow and locking up like crazy. I mean so bad CTR+ALT Delete wasnt working.. It wasnt frozen it just wasnt running programs.

After I decided I could not figure out the problem I try to listen to some music on my PC. Sound would not play and I got error messages. Well my sound isnt working any more and my speakers are fine.

I feel that everything happening is a result of the sound card. Well every time I turn on the computer the same thing happens.


Does anyone have any advice for me?

I was thinking about re-installing windows... I can do that out of the blue right...... I dont have to wipe my HD?

If windows didnt work or you guys said I should do that, I was going to Wipe The Hard Drive so its empty.. Would that solve it??

What should I do.

Dell
Windows ME
356 MB RAM
110 GB Hard-Drive
Sound Blaster Card
Pentium 3 Proccessor

Well I would appreciate it if you guys would help me out..... I'm really clueless here.

Nicolas

Before doing anything to the OS I would verify that all the hardware is ok: all cards and memory seated properly, all cable connections inside the case are tight and secure. Once you are satisfied with that, use windows to remove the sound card from the system then reboot and let it reload it. You may or may not need the drivers for the card so if you don't have a disk then go to the manf site and download the drivers first. If the problem still persists you should remove the sound card physically from the system and from windows and see if the machine behaves properly without that card. If it does then the card went bad. A good test to try if you suspect the card is bad is try it in another system if you can.

well that should get you started...

mmm sounds like bad.

try this(don't get mad if what I said is wrong any one)

when you start up your computer push f8 till it asks for you to switch to safe mode then go into safe mode. First do this
go to run write dxdiag to see if there is any sound card problems(if there is problems you can try reinstalling the drivers for it)
if not any problems ask if any one install any thing lately.
also try this in safe mode.

virus scan then defrag

if you still have the problem then you can try reinstalling windows. You wont lose any files with reinstall or try reinstalling the drivers for the card.

Great_Knight has some good suggestions but I'd poke around in the case a bit first to verify what I mentioned. Reinstalling the OS may not be necessary if you can verify that a particular device is flaking out, and it only takes a few minutes to reset the card in windows (by remove hardware option) and seeing if reboot/reload helps, or if that doesn't work, popping the card out physically and seeing if the machine goes back to normal.

Just trying to save the proverbial "I reinstalled my OS and the same crap is still happening!!"

u may want to do a clean install if a total failure evident.

Assuming u got a CD-R(W) drive

Try getting a linux distro that boots from CD and has a CD-R ( i know there are some around, Knoppix has one i think, but its 650MB, there are some with 65MB and under with CD-R capability.

I have knoppix around just in case, even works on my laptop. Means u can back-up data etc.

Does you motherboard have sound included? You could just take your soundcard out of your computer, and put your leads in the motherboard. If you still get no sound, you might need to go into Bios to turn on the motherboard's sound.

To go into Bios, press DEL whilst your computer is booting up. Look for the option to turn the Audio On then save the Bios.

Pincho.