# No active mixer devices.



## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

I posted this elsewhere on this forum but am not getting any replies.

I cannot get any sound on my computer and when trying to access volume control I get the above error message (No active mixer devices available), All sound settings in control panel are greyed out.
I have had normal working sound on this machine for a few years.

This seemed to have happened after trying to use VLC and Sopcast to stream live video.
I have tried numerous fixes: reinstalled drivers, turned on Windows Audio in Services, reinstalled PnP Enumerator after cleaning out registry, reinstalled SP2. Nothing has helped.

The following are my motherboard stats:

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 1818 MHz (18 x 101)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-8IRX (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 3 DIMM, Audio)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Brookdale i845D
System Memory 512 MB (PC2100 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (01/04/02)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Creative SB PCI128 (Ensoniq ES5880) Sound Card

I have reinstalled my motherboard chipset and audio drivers. I tried removing the Microsoft Kernel Audio Drivers but upon reboot Windows did not reinstall them, so I am now missing most of those. There are no yellow exclamation marks in device manager!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Hi,

The cause of this can be that the Windows Audio Service has been disabled.
Click Start > Run. Type *services.msc* and click OK.
Double-click on Windows Audio in the right-hand column.
You should get a window looking like this: (click the thumbnail)








Set the Startup Type to Automatic and click the Start button under Service Status.

Nicholas


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

> I have tried numerous fixes: reinstalled drivers, *turned on Windows Audio in Services*....


Thanks for your help but I've tried that and it doesn't help. Originally the service WAS stopped, but starting it did not fix the sound issue. It is started each time I boot but I still have no sound.


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Sorry, I missed that :embarased 
Have you tried a system restore to a date before the problems started?


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

For whatever reason there seem to be no restore points prior to the date of the problem in the System Restore Wizard. Is there a way of accessing prior restore points manually?


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Not that I know of. You could try a repair install.


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

Don't have my XP installer cd, so I'm looking to try all other options... Plus according to others with the same problem, reinstallation of Windows does not fix the issue.


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

I found *another fix* on the net - maybe worth a try? Follow the instructions in post #9.


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

Sorry, tried that one too. :sigh: 


http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1066427444

That is a pretty comprehensive thread with fixes, and I've tried just about all of them. None have helped...


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## chauffeur2 (Feb 7, 2006)

Hello junaman,

You mentioned ealier that you reinstalled your Windows® installation....was this a "Repair" of the Installation, or was it a complete "Clean" Installation?

If it was a "Clean" installation;then, you will need to also re-install _all_ the Audio Drivers etc., from the CD that came with your Motherboard.

Did you do this?

Please let us know this information.

Kind Regards,


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

No. I have not yet tried reinstalling Windows as I do not have the installation CD.

I reinstalled Service Pack 2 (without uninstalling it first) from a downloaded file.

My sound card driver is installed and working fine in device manager.
What I AM missing is the Microsoft Kernel Audio Drivers, which I uninstalled from device manager, and Windows did not automatically find. All the relevant files are still in my system32\drivers folder. Is there a way I can manually install these?


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

Sorry, was away this week.

Any ideas on how to fix the problem?


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Have you installed the "post-SP2" updates from Microsoft? I f that doesn't help I would suggest a repair installation of Windows (yes, I know you don't have the CD).


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

.....


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

OK.

Did a repair install (upgrade - as it's called on the cd).
Sound is still gone. During the installation however, it said that some files could not be copied and I had to skip them. These were:

drivers.cab
iasklpr.dll
iasnap.dll
iasrecst.dll
iassam.dll
iassdo.dll
iasrad.dll
iac25_32.ax
miguser.inf
migwiz.exe

Any idea why these werent copied/what else I could do?

Probably going to reformat and clean install soon....


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Check the CD for scratches/stains/smears. See if you can copy the CD to a folder on the hard drive (not the XP partition) and run it from there.


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## junaman (Jul 24, 2005)

Did a reinstall from a clean CD, without any errors - still no sound.

The installer DID ask me halfway through to point it to a specific file from my sound card drivers. I led it to the updated driver, which I had downloaded from the Sound Card website and which was on my desktop. Should I have reverted back to the original driver instead? 

Anything else I should look into? Could it be a problem within the BIOS?


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