I have a Dell Dimension E 520 and had to formate my hard drive. Everything is working fine now except my sound. It was working before I did the format. According to my billing list I have a Unimodem Half-Duplex audio device.
Since I no longer have sound I looked around. I went to the device manager and found those nasty yellow question marks on the PCI device, the SMBus controller, and the video controller . I'm only assuming that I need drivers, I don't know for sure. When I looked in the device manager under the sound card there was no question mark in the audio sound. If this makes ANY sense to anyone, could I please get some help? Thanks so much.
Hi and welcome to the WTT forums.
Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine.
It could be that after you formatted your machine's hard drive and reinstalled Windows you didn't install the chipset/video and audio drivers……?
These are usually to be found on the Dell Drivers and Support disc or can be downloaded from the Dell Website.
Regards
paws
I have a Dell Dimension E 520 and had to formate my hard drive. Everything is working fine now except my sound.
and your video adapter. You are seeing video due to windows having a 'default' video driver, and not the video card that it SHOULD be using.
I went to the device manager and found those nasty yellow question marks on the PCI device, the SMBus controller, and the video controller . I'm only assuming that I need drivers, I don't know for sure.
you are indeed correct. Reinstalling windows, (regardless if you reformat the drive,) will require that ALL device drivers be re-installed. You got LUCKY but you don't know it, one of the 'missing' drivers is usually the ETHERNET ADAPTER or NIC card which lets you use a broadband internet connection. One of the default NIC Drivers on the windows CD was good enough….likely you have an Intel-based system….most dells are.
as said above, either locate your Dell driver disk, or go to the Dell website and put your 'service code' in the support page and download the audio, (HD audio if avail too,) and the Video driver, (If there are multiple drivers listed, look at the dell for a sticker like ATI or Nvidia and if you see one, download only drivers that say ATI or Nvidia….otherwise, you'll just have to try'em one at a time.
When I looked in the device manager under the sound card there was no question mark in the audio sound. If this makes ANY sense to anyone, could I please get some help?
with Hi-Def Audio now there is more to 'sound' than their used to be. As in your case, you can have 'some' of the sound drivers installed, but there will still be no audio until they are completely installed.
Tallon, thanks for your reply and I popped that Dell disk in and dowloaded and installed drivers and I good to go!! )
Usually with this pc of mine it's more "operator error" than anything else. )
Thanks again.
I have a Dell Dimension E 520 and had to formate my hard drive. Everything is working fine now except my sound. It was working before I did the format. According to my billing list I have a Unimodem Half-Duplex audio device.
Since I no longer have sound I looked around. I went to the device manager and found those nasty yellow question marks on the PCI device, the SMBus controller, and the video controller . I'm only assuming that I need drivers, I don't know for sure. When I looked in the device manager under the sound card there was no question mark in the audio sound. If this makes ANY sense to anyone, could I please get some help? Thanks so much.
Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine.
It could be that after you formatted your machine's hard drive and reinstalled Windows you didn't install the chipset/video and audio drivers……?
These are usually to be found on the Dell Drivers and Support disc or can be downloaded from the Dell Website.
Regards
paws
)
Usually with this pc of mine it's more "operator error" than anything else. 
Regards
paws