Probably a windows problem as much as any other category.
I just did a reinstall of XP Home. A number of things in Device Manager had ? next to them.
All were under "other devices" and the list included audio. In my attempts to liven the audio up, I followed some instruction to go down to system devices and uninstall Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio, and then rebooted, after which it reappeared; but the entire audio device had disappeared along with its question mark.
Trying to look this up is making me crazy. Probably just needed to download a driver, but cannot seem to find a simple solution to putting the whole thing back together.
No "Probably" about it, xp only has a few device drivers compared to the newer OS's, so you always need to install drivers when reinstalling xp, and there is a best order to do this in, you should do them in the following order:-
Chipset - Video - Sound then pretty much whatever is left over.
You need to identify your motherboard, then go to that makers site, and look under Downloads\Support to find your board, then just ensure the correct operating system is selected (where it asks you), or make sure you select the xp drivers instead of any other ones that will be in there as well, download them all and install, then see what the device manager says, if the marks are gone then that's it, if any remain we need to figure what that device is, hope this helps.
It's Dell, and my download page seems to be this: http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/…viceTag/d9x4rf1 according to my service number.
Lookit alla them video drivers, just for instance!
Can you suss out what I should be installing of all these 60 drivers?
These have the yellow question marks:
SM bus controller
Unknown Device
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)
…and audio device is not even showing
(There are also drivers needed for my printer/scanner, which I will get from Epson)
Right they aren't the friendliest of places, they tend to list all releases rather than clearly stating the newest ones, but if you use the filtering option's it will get you down to 3 drivers, of which you can install all of them, unless your system says it already has a newer driver installed, in which case leave that one alone, so do the following, and then lets see what happens.
Under "Refine your results" click on the option to "See More Filtering Options"
Then under "Type" select Driver, there it will give just 3 results, those are what you need (more sp0ecifically the Audio one), but try all and see how you go.
As to the printer, Epson has a scan utility which will find your printer, incase your having troubles there, occasionally I have found it wont list what I need, but it will find it just fine lol, once you have tried these see what is left and we can go from there.
OK, sound restored. Yay!
Haven't done the printer yet.
Still says SM bus controller is outa whack. Whatever it is. Can you suggest a driver from that lot?
……….later: found that. Couldn't it just have said "chipset?"
On to the printer……………………………………and done.
I'm gonna reboot and get my backup restore started again, and, I guess, let any more glitches wait until that is completed.
Thanks for your help!
Right go to the site again, this time select "All related drivers for your Product (60 files)" and it will show everything, luckily what you want is a single option, so no confusion about which one, just go down to the Chipset driver, and download that, it's the 4th one down, that should sort out that problem for you, so give that a go, and then you can see if there is anything else needed, glad you got one issue solved so far.
No, I meant all issues solved for the moment. I will surely have more, of a different sort, once the restore download is complete in a couple of days. Will want to see if my programs reappear, and my bookmarks, and my saved e-mails, and so forth.
So we're up to date now.
Thanks again
denno
