sound card and vido card problems//

Hi folks, I am looking for some help with a problem I am facing with my sound card and video card at the moment. I had a virus a few months ago which basically deleted the majority of stuff off my hard drive. I passed my computer onto a freind who installed a new operating system and he gave it me back… I installed the necessary drivers and it seemed to work fine… Untill I started to watch TV and play music…. The video card and drivers seemed to be installed fine however it seems darker than usual.. I have played around with the settings but can't seem to fix the problem… On the same note the sound card seems to have been affected too as it is producing lots of bass. I have tried to play around with those settings too. I am really thinking of spending some money on a new graphics card and sound card but wondered if anybody could help me out.. I have a compaq presario. geforce fx 5500 nvidia. sam

a freind who installed a new operating system and he gave it me back… I installed the necessary drivers and it seemed to work fine..

Did you re-install the motherboard Chipset Drivers?

yes but not from the compaq website as It was not available

not from the compaq website as It was not available

That seems odd to me. So where'd you get it. From the MotherBoard website? from a Driver reinstallation CD that came with the machine?

motherboard website…

Is this one of the Presario models that has the speakers installed directly onto the Monitor? Are the audio feed wires bundled with the video/monitor cable?

built in speakers to the monitor….

Ok, I've been reading up on Presarios with that configuration, and it seems there are some specific known difficulties. In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to make sure that your Operating System files are in good shape. Run System File Checker Start - Run (type)sfc /scannow - Enter This will access your Windows File Protection utility and scan for any missing or corrupt System files. SFC will call for your Windows CD to copy any bad files that need to be replaced. The whole process takes about 15 minutes start to finish and is comletely safe. I'll keep reading up on the specifics regarding this type of Presario configuration. And you might benefit from a bit of Google search yourself to learn what's out there that could help. Best Regards

Hmm - there might be a slight problem here as my windows Operating System CD is with the friend who fixed it for me… It is about 300 Miles away.. I am sorry but extremely graetful for your help… I have a funny feeling that I might need to re-install my operating system then re-install my drivers…. Would it be worthwhile just trying to re-install my motherboard driver!?

300 miles is much to far for an Operating System installation CD to be away from its machine. But at least you know where it is, and that's much better than most folks who didn't even think it was important to keep all those disks that they didn't understand in the first place. Installing the ChipSet Drivers should be done as the Second step, just after installing the Operating System. Then you would install Video card Driver, Sound card driver, moden/Nic Driver, any other Peripheral component Drivers, then install your application programs. As to "re-installing" you Chipset Drivers at this time…. It wouldn't "hurt" anything, but it also may not help. Go ahead with the reinstall if you think your present difficulty is related. As to SFC System File Checker… all the necessary files for replacement may already exist in a cabs in the folder C:\Windows\i386. It may be possible to direct SFC to "look" into that location for replacement files. Some folks have had difficulty doing that, saying that SFC refused to budge if the CD didn't get installed. Do you have the SP2 upgrade CD from Microsoft? That would work just as well as the original install CD. For that matter, if you have a friend locally who will loan you any XP install CD, SFC is not particular and will not require you to enter your Product Identification Code, since this is an integrated repair utiility, not a fresh installation. If you have SP2 installed on this machine, the "borrowed CD" must also be an SP2 version. Best Regards