Help - losing my mind over Windows XP driver search

thumpar

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Make sure you have SP3 on it. There were some changes with sound drivers with SP3. While you are at it run all the windows updates. Sometimes MS will have a newer driver in the optional updates.
 

scoutabout

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OK - did the first one - lots of neat info on the machine. I noticed a check for driver tab at the top of the diagnostic window which took me to a link for Driver Agent. I downloaded that and got a very detailed list of system components and associated driver status. 25 out of date, including the AMD.

So....question is they want me to register to continue. Is this a kosher service or more bs?
 

MTboatguy

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OK - did the first one - lots of neat info on the machine. I noticed a check for driver tab at the top of the diagnostic window which took me to a link for Driver Agent. I downloaded that and got a very detailed list of system components and associated driver status. 25 out of date, including the AMD.

So....question is they want me to register to continue. Is this a kosher service or more bs?

Don't register for driver agent, you will end up with a lot of spam, just use the detailed information and go over to the AMD support page and get the drivers you need for the items that are out of date and also as thumpar said, make sure your windows version has the updates installed as well. XP is no longer supported, but you should still be able to download the updates that were done over the years.
 

rbh

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I will try and find the build sheet and post it here, hopefully it will take it.
 

scoutabout

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OK - I've spent a little more time looking at what PC Wizard is saying about my machine and see some potentially conflicting info:

While Control Panel references an AMD sound device, PC Wizard references an Intel Azalia Audio Device (under Mainboard tab) and under the Multimedia tab two audio "devices" - an Intel ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller and an ATI PC Partner HD Audio Codec. There are also 14 different Audio Compression items listed underneath these.

So am I after AMD, Intel, ATI or other drivers and is it possible all these audio compression elements are tripping over each other and creating the muddy sound?

I am happy to be able to confirm XP Service Pack 3...
 

MTboatguy

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Make sure you have enough computer to run Win 7. I'm pretty sure my XP computer would melt into a puddle if I loaded Win 7 on it.

Depends on when it was built, I had two of mine that upgraded with no hitches are all and run just fine, if it is a early build XP machine, it is going to give you fits and might not run reliably at all, it all depends on the processor and the speed of memory and the mother board structure. That is why I suggested downloading and running the windows 7 upgrade adviser.
 

MTboatguy

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OK - I've spent a little more time looking at what PC Wizard is saying about my machine and see some potentially conflicting info:

While Control Panel references an AMD sound device, PC Wizard references an Intel Azalia Audio Device (under Mainboard tab) and under the Multimedia tab two audio "devices" - an Intel ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller and an ATI PC Partner HD Audio Codec. There are also 14 different Audio Compression items listed underneath these.

So am I after AMD, Intel, ATI or other drivers and is it possible all these audio compression elements are tripping over each other and creating the muddy sound?

I am happy to be able to confirm XP Service Pack 3...

AMD used all of those in the construction of their motherboards, but if you have all of those listed, you need to delete all of the audio stuff and start over to get the correct drivers for that particular mother board. If you can open the case up and look at the mother board, AMD has always been pretty good at labeling their boards, then it should be easy to track it down.
 

thumpar

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What kind of video card do you have? It could be you have sound on the motherboard and video card. Most likely the intel being on the motherboard and ATI/AMD (same company) being on the video card. Both intel and AMD/ATI drivers are easy to find on their websites.
 

scoutabout

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MT and thumpar - thanks for hangin in. Going to crack the case and poke around.
 

scoutabout

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Ho boy...I'm back (posting from my old Samsung Netbook) and I think I screwed the pooch on this one.

So, I carefully open the case in order to see if I can find a sound card name to relate to you fine gents and what do I find but a tower so full of dust and crud you could have assembled your own Persian cat. No good I thought plus I couldn't read much through all the dust. So I got out my trusty can of compressed air and spent some time blowing much of it away, then go then got the brilliant idea that a brush nozzle on the end of the central vac hose
would really suck the crud out. I assumed it would be suitably grounded considering its integration with the rest of the house.

I cleaned everything out nicely, got all the heat sink fins in various locations clear, made sure the fans all rotated properly then went looking around. I discerned that the sound card is probably on board the main board as there was no PCI card on the inside of the box where the sound outputs were. They just connect directly to the board through a small silver box. There is a dedicated video card (ATI Saphire HD 2600 Pro). The only text on the main board besides Intel is the number D975XBX.

I buttoned everything up, attempted to start it and got nothing showing on the screen after the usual Press F4 to enter RAIC utility.

Finally, the message appeared that Windows could not start normally and gave other options (Safe Mode etc.) I tried all those with no luck. The machine would always come back to "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys"

Yikes.

Seems like I might have damaged the hard drive with the vacuuming? It does seem strange that the error would be file related and not an issue with hardware...unless that's how it manifests itself.

-----------

So - here's my plan but I will need to beg a little more of your patience: I have managed to get into the Repair Console by using the OEM CD. If that one file is bad surely I can use the copy command to overwrite from the CD? I just need to know what the command prompt syntax is to grab the file off the CD and write a copy into the correct system folder on the hard drive. The only other thing I need is to figure out what the CD drive letter is.

Can you guys help me with that syntax structure? I can't figure it out. And do you think this is a reasonable way forward? I assume if I've wrecked more than a single system file I'm going to find out pretty quick this isn't the fix...
 

MTboatguy

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All you have to do is run the install again and it will repair any files that were corrupted.

The number you supplied is for an intel motherboard that will accept intel processors and it has the intel high definition sound system on it, built into the mother board, the link to the information on that mother board is:

http://www.intel.com/products/mother...d=mbd_main+xbx

You should also be able to download any drivers you need from intel. But like I said, you should be able to run your original disk from the repair menu and it will repair any files that are damaged., also, open the case up before running anything and make sure you didn't knock the hard drive cable loose, I have done that more than I want to remember.
 

scoutabout

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Oct 14, 2006
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Alright, I'm going to call uncle on this box. The cd is also acting up and I've invested about as much time as I can spare on this thing considering it's going on a decade plus. I'm going to salvage the monitor since it was a nice big one and will look at some kind of harness so I can hook up the hard drive and pull the files off it. Then I'll get me some Cyber week deal online. I should be able to find something well under a grand for the kind of duty my wife will be looking for. I certainly appreciate the help though.
 
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