No sound - nVIDIA sound card/Multimedia Audio Controller problems

[Prisca712]

Hello, I’ve been reading through the threads on sound problems, but I’ve started a thread because my situation has a few different issues. Yesterday I was trying to watch a DVD on my computer (a Compaq Presario 6020US), and the sound wasn’t working. After going through the troubleshooting on the program, it said that the problem was something that would be resolved by downloading an upgrade from Compaq. I downloaded the update, restarted my computer, and got the dreaded ‘DSndUP error: No ADI codec driver is installed” and no sound on my computer.

So I was stuck with both SoundMAX and my sound card (an nVIDIA nForce MPC Audio Codec Interface) not working. I went through Google and tried numerous solutions, but to no avail. Then one of the attempts seemed to, unfortunately, really muck things up, because the nVIDIA sound card went from being absent in Device Manager, to appearing with a yellow exclamation point, to not being recognized at all; it was now called a ‘Multimedia Audio Controller’ and had a big yellow question mark and a yellow exclamation point. When I entered properties it said ‘This device is not configured correctly. (Code 1) To reinstall the drivers for this device, click Reinstall Driver.’

Sounds and Audio Devices in the Control Panel said ‘No Audio Device’ and everything under the ‘Audio’ tab was completely grayed out with the setting of ‘No playback/recording/etc. device”. Plus, the little speaker icon in the tray at the lower right hand corner was not there, and when I went to volume control (Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> Entertainment --> Volume Control) it didn’t even open (it just gave me the ‘There are no active mixers’ error message). On top of all this, SoundMAX started displaying an error saying that it couldn’t open because the registry entry was corrupted.

The registry thing freaked me out, so I got and ran a registry cleaner and tried to re-install SoundMAX and look for nVIDIA drivers. Initially it seemed like it didn’t work, but I checked after a while and found that SoundMAX was suddenly working perfectly – even the MIDI Music Playback tab in Sounds and Audio Devices was no longer grayed out and had it listed.

I don’t know exactly what fixed the SoundMAX issue (the registry cleanup?), but the Device Manager is still not recognizing the nVIDIA sound card and only has ‘Multimedia Audio Controller’ listed. Oddly enough, I ran Everest and it is there under ‘PCI/PnP Audio.’ I’m not sure what the problem is – it seems that in the folder C:\Compaq there are what look like nVIDIA subfolders, which makes me wonder if the drivers/files are still there? Do you have any advice or solutions for this? I have no idea how to proceed so any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Here’s my Belarc report:

Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

System Model
System Serial Number: 3D23KMZ8D0TB
Asset Tag: 3D23KMZ8D0TB
Chassis Serial Number: 3D23KMZ8D0TB
Enclosure Type: Desktop

Processor
1.60 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Main Circuit Board
Board: Compaq 07D0h
Serial Number: 3D23KMZ8D0TB
Bus Clock: 266 megahertz
BIOS: Compaq 686Y4 v1.03 02/20/2002

Drives
80.02 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
1.26 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

Compaq DVD-ROM DVD-117 [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H54N [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

Maxtor 4D080H4 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n D414KNLE, rev DAH017K0, SMART Status: Healthy

1248 Megabytes Installed Memory

Memory Modules c,d
Slot 'DIMM1' has 256 MB (serial number 2112054F)
Slot 'DIMM2' has 1024 MB

Local Drive Volumes
c:(NTFS on drive 0) 80.02 GB 1.26 GB free

Network Drives None detected

Canon Bubble-Jet BJ-20 on \\EDZXCVBNM\Printer4
Canon Bubble-Jet BJ-20 on \\EDZXCVBNM\Printer5
CAPTURE FAX BVRP on NUL:
CutePDF Writer on CPW2:
HP LaserJet 5L on \\EDZXCVBNM\Printer3
Lexmark 1200 Series on USB001
Lexmark 3200 Color Jetprinter on LPT1:
PDF995 Printer Driver on PDF995PORT

Controllers
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Display
NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated GPU (Microsoft Corporation) [Display adapter]
Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (17.1"vis, s/n HVFL309474, March 2006)

Bus Adapters
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller (2x)


Multimedia
None detected

Bus Adapters
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller (2x)

Communications
Conexant HSFi V90 V92 56K PCI Modem #2


IEEE 802.11g Wireless Cardbus/PCI Adapter
NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
primary Auto IP Address: 99.255.22.111 / 23
Gateway: 99.255.22.1
Dhcp Server: 99.254.136.1
Physical Address: 00:40:CA:2B:48:BF

Networking Dns Server: 64.71.255.198

Other Devices
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Compatible Mouse
USB Root Hub (2x)

Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition
Version 8.0.1.15 Realtime File Scanning On