No Windows sound

[Fowlerflap]

Hello,

I just installed Windows 98SE on a brand new computer I put together and I seem to have no sound at all in Windows. For example when I go into Start>Control Panel>Sounds I cannot even preview the different Windows sounds for events since the play button is grayed out. Also I have no volume control in windows. I am able to play CD's through the CDRW with no problem. I have a Sound Blaster Live card that appears to be working fine. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[ktkendall]

Hi there flowerflap:
Do you know how to view device manager, that is first place to look to see what windows thinks you have installed and perhaps view any hardware devices that are present but not fully installed properly...Good chance you have a driver issue, cause Audio compac disks kind of play directly from CDROM drive right out thru sound card so that is probably why it works but standard windows sounds do not yet..

[Fowlerflap]

Thanks for the reply.
I checked device manager under Sound,Video, Game Controllers and have the following entries:

-Creative Gameport
-Creative SBLive/series
-Unknown Device (this entry has a red X through it)

I think the unknown device might be for the onboard sound.
When I first got the computer up and running, I tried to use the onboard sound but had the same problem with no WIndows sound. I then decided to go ahead and install the sound card and see if it would work. I did disable the onboard sound in BIOS before in stalling the sound card.

Thanks!

[ktkendall]

I can not be positive, but I think if you have totally disabled that onboard sound it won't even show up at all. I believe disabling it in the bios makes it like it isn't even there, so if I'm right on that, then that device with red X could be the parent device of the sound card and will need the drivers. I'm thinking if you are sure onboard sound is disabled thru the BIOS, and you work with your device manager a bit to load all drivers for the creative sound card you should be good to go. Sometimes removing device from device manager and rebooting, or just going to contral panel>add new hardware will help...
I have personally found sound cards to be the hardest at times to get loaded and properly working...

[Fowlerflap]

Its working now. I clicked on the unknown device and saw it had no drivers loaded so I had windows search for a driver and load it. when I rebooted, I had windows sound. When I went back to device manager, I noticed the "Unknown Device" item was gone.

Thanks for your help

[ktkendall]

No Problem, Always glad to hear when things turn out successful..