Dell 400sc, Windows 2000... after installing a graphics card and fooling around with different drivers to get it working, I found myself with no sound. In Control Panel/Sounds and Multimedia, the Sound Volume slider is greyed out and I have no volume icon in the lower desktop toolbar. Under the Audio tab where the preferred devices are usually listed, it's greyed out and says "no playback devices" "no recording devices" "no midi playback devices". When I try to start the Volume Control from Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Volume Control, I get the "there are no active mixer devices available" error message.
I've tried many times removing and re-installing the SoundMax driver(s), and I just noticed that even after I remove SoundMax(through Device Manager), it always gets automatically re-installed when I reboot, even if I don't re-install it. The only way to get rid of SoundMax is to go into the Bios setup and disable the integrated sound. Is this right, shouldn't be able to remove SoundMax completely so I can try to re-install it.
I have a second Win2000 OS on a dual boot, same computer. The sound was working there until I started removing the original old graphics card drivers (Radeon 7500 All in Wonder) so I could get the newer graphics card working...again, the same thing happened, my sound and volume control disappeared. I tried installing Total Recorder, thinking it might set up the correct drivers for sound, but it won't even play because of this problem. So it looks like some basic problem in Win2000 has been triggered. I'd sure appreciate some help from someone knowledgeable with this exact type of problem.
Hoping for the best,
John