T1B

Gateway PC five years old.

Windows XP Home Edition
Service Pack 2
Intel Pentium 4 2.26 GHz
512 RAM
80 GB Storage

I'm not too technically knowledgeable on computers.

Recent performance was slow with an occasional freeze. Often takes quite long to shut down because some applications don't respond like Norton Anti-Virus, for example. I thought I'd run it through various spyware and cleaner scans: Adaware, Spybot, and CCleaner. Throw out a bunch of documents and music files I no longer need. Throw out a bunch of shit games my kid loaded on. Looked at the startup and 86ed a handful of non-essential items. Throw in a full system antivirus scan (86 minutes 420,000 files) and a defrag. Performance wasn't much better. Still took quite awhile to start up and shut down.

Yesterday it crashed following a Windows Update session. I was downloading two optional hardware updates: one for the processor and one for sound. At first I could restart in safe mode. After a system restore, the first time I had ever had to complete such a restore, everything seemed fine.

Then this morning I noticed the lack of sound. No system sounds, no mp3 sounds, nothing.

For the next 90 minutes I tried troubleshooting for sound with suggested steps from the Windows/Gateway troubleshooter loaded on the computer. During that wasted-time-I'll-never-get-back, I happened to notice that when I open Control Panel>Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices>Sound and Audio Devices> the device volume is turned down to the lowest level but I cannot make any changes. Everything on the other tabs seems fine. Even the hardware tab says 'device is working normal' for each and every device listed.

Went back to Windows Update. Went for the same two optional hardware. Some process called 'cthelper.exe' was stalling my whole system. It was taking 99% of the CPU. WTF is 'cthelper.exe'? Then, all of a sudden, the computer made a guttural, wrenching sound and crashed. It managed to restart after three tries. It apparently recovered from a 'major error'.

Went to Windows update again. This time it only showed the processor update available. It went through fine after I ended the 'cthelper.exe' task through task manager. Nothing about the sound related update. Nothing in the record book either. Strange.
Does Microsoft instantly pull back optional hardware downloads when there's a coincidental system crash?

Anyway, if any of you tech types have any suggestions other than kicking the tires, switching on the flux capacitor, I'd be obliged. I'll be away for the next two weeks so I may not be very timely in replying to any questions you may have.

Off to Vegas, DC, and Boston.

Did the Gateway come with a set of recovery disks or a full Windows installation disk?

Give me the model of Gateway, and I'll see if I can track down sound card drivers.

I'm in DC, bring the PC.

Best idea is to re-install the sound driver or the whole PC. You should be able to go to the Gateway website and get the latest one.

I've muddled around with the device driver disc and with driver downloads at the Gateway website. Still no luck.

New sound card. Still no sound. Now lots of system instability. It only runs in safe mode.

Problem with plugging in the sound card is I don't have the software/CD-ROM associated with it. My nephew literally cannibalized it from on of his machines. It's from Creative Audigy and says 'Audigy 2' on the card itself but I don't know which model. I should have known better than to think it would be as easy as plug and play.

Just how screwed am I?

You can get the latest drivers from Creative's site, but make sure you uninstall the old sound drivers first.

You might have to uninstall the driver, take the sound card out, then reinstall the driver and plug the card back in. This would be my first try if just installing/reinstall/updating the driver doesn't work. If it still doesn't work or leaves the system unstable, you may need to run a system repair. make sure XP has the latest SP updates and such. A lot of times installing an SP can clear up issues for a few months, but not always. I've seen XP do some weird shit sometimes and nothing short of a re-install helps.

having the same issue with a 2nd computer I am setting up for my kids.. I d'l the drivers for the onboard sound card since the device manager indicated there were no drivers (the sound device had a few ? next to the hardware).

SoCal what does your device manager show for the onboard and sound card you have?

**edit- my issue was resolved- I uninstalled the onboard sound card and the drivers, restarted the computer, ran the hardware install and the computer automatically detected and installed the sound card again. I updated the drivers I had previously downloaded. This fixed the sound issue but my computer was still freezing.

Checked my RAM sticks (had 2 sticks of 512 each). Removed the generic looking one, keeping in the kingston stick, and replaced with a 256 stick I had laying around.. problem fixed.. no more computer freezing and sound is restored.

I have one of those tv tuner cards but no cable outlet in the room where my computers are.. .. anyone know of any hardware that I can create a wireless connection to receive the signal? I have digital cable in the house but I can get a basic cable signal if I don't connect the box to the tv.

Otherwise I'll wait for Verizon to get their tv service out to my area and have a new cable jack installed then.

Ended up going out of pocket and paying a kid who knows something about computers. He's a system administrator for the City of Hope. Doesn't know exactly what the root of the problem was. Saw something was f'ed up with user files.

New sound card. Windows reinstalled. All better now.

Jim in Ph - the device manager showed the sound card as sort of grayed out when I first had trouble with it. Then it disappeared altogether when I tried a second sound card.

Hey Jim in Ph. I"ll be in Philly on the 25th and 26th doing a century. You can come and cheer for me!

You may want to make sure that the system didn't disable your on board sound card for some reason. If it doesn't show up, it may be a sign that Windows isn't detecting it, which either means a problem with Windows, a problem with the system board/Bios or that the device is disabled. IRQ shouldn't be an issue these days but you may want to double check that there isn't some type of a weird conflict. An easy test to see if the problem is with Windows is to throw in a live Linux CD, boot from that and see if it recognizes your sound card.

As far as solutions go, you could try running some windows tools to see if a dll/windows file is screwed up. SFC /Scannow is a good one to try, although this only scans protected Windows files so its usefulness in this case might be limited. You should definitely try to force a hardware detect from the hardware manager if the bardware is not showing up and check to see that you don't have an unknown device thats actually your sound card. If the card shows up but no sound is coming out of it, you can try removing the driver in safe mode and re-installing it or go into the sound properties and make sure that its not muted. I've noticed that most of the time when a sound card is correctly installed and shows up but no sound comes up, you need to go into the sound properties and make sure the correct sound device is marked as your sound card and that one of the hidden volume controls aren't muted.
As a last result you can pick up an external sound card for $20 at Best Buy or just order it online.