Ok, approximately 4 hours ago, I returned from my Lectures and got on my notebook, when I noticed that the sound did not work at all.
After a restart, the audio manager in the bottom right corner told me that there currently are no audio devices installed. My device manager doesn't even recognize any audio device in my machine, which is strange, since it should be part of my main board. It pretty much stopped working overnight without me touching it, which is pretty ironic considering the physical damage that this machine has already suffered.
Until now I have tried installing a universal Realtech driver, which didn't work, I have found and tried to install the original drivers for this machine, which simply give me an output message that "the hardware is not supported by this software-product", I have updated windows as well as my bios, played around with the system settings and looked for some kind of hidden switch at the bottom of my machine. No success so far.
I have a Compaq 615 with windows Vista Basic, aka shitbox 0815 and it's basically falling apart by itself, but so far I have been able to fix all issues by myself and didn't really have any major problems with it. The crucial data could easily be saved and I would consider opening it up if I had the necessary tools, I would consider a complete system recovery but it came without a CD, finally I might even consider getting a new one, but that would pretty much be the "final solution". I am probably too much of a greedy asshole to go to some specialist as they even charge you a fortune to remove a simple virus back at my home University in Germany and this is the UK, so fuck me...
Anyone got any suggestions for me or experience with this kind of issue?
You might want to just buy a new one :/
My moms laptop had the same problem where things just started to not recognize. First it was the audio system, even the audio jacks were out. Then all of the USB ports were dead.
your ports might be failing. how old is it?
Pretty much about 3 years old
3 years old isn't that old , at least for ownership. that being said, it sounds like the onboard sound is dead for whatever reason. the only solution i can think of is resorting to a usb/portable sound card like this (http://www.head-fi.org/products/creative-sound-blaster-recon3d-thx-usb-external-sound-enhancer-for-pc-ps3-xbox-360-and-mac-sb1300). it'd be another thing to carry around with you, and i can't imagine the sound quality being absolutely amazing, but it's an option.
Ok, qucik summary to keep you up to date:
I had a more or less talk in the chat with some of you guys, and yes, after some experimenting with the bios and further inspection of the situation we came to the conclusion that the problem is most likely hardware related.
To cut a long story short, after punching and exercising pressure on the front part of my laptop in order to try to fix it through a fluke and brute force (which unluckily hasn't worked so far), Instant suggested to go for one of these usb devices.... or at least... somewhat like it.
I eventually ended up ordering a device for two pounds. Probably only a temporary solution but definitely better than nothing.
I'm not really sure why you suspect that a 100 buck product only provides a mediocre quality, but boy, if that's true, I cannot wait to find out how horrible a two pound device must be. I am looking forward to try it and until then I will keep on punching my laptop and hope for a miracle.
i just can't imagine a portable usb sound card being all that amazing
Ok, holy fuck, what?
I just restarted the machine (for about the 9th time today) and now the sound device started working again all of a sudden...
I really have no idea why but if it was the punching and pressing, the credit goes to Instant...
We will see how long that lasts... just in case, I'll still get the usb thing, so if it should happen again, I will tell you how terrible a 2 Pound soundcard actually is.
Oh hey, great! Glad to know it's working for you. Hopefully it'll stay that way. :)
you should keep punching it anyway
http://youtu.be/czgjkwHiKQQ (http://youtu.be/czgjkwHiKQQ)
Go to Greece and find the richest looking olive eating malakas and demand he pay the debts. With the Greek debts you can go buy a new laptop.
Quote from: Kott on October 24, 2012 08:44 PMwhich is pretty ironic considering the physical damage that this machine has already suffered.
Not sure exactly what you did with your laptop, but it is possible that if it fell down or something, a wire or component loosened up. Once that happens, it's just a matter of time before it craps out.
That would also explain why it works sometimes. Next time it acts up, instead of punching it, shake it around with your fingers crossed (not literally with your fingers crossed!!)
As for the quality of USB sound-cards - I have 2 and they're both as good or even better than my on-board sound-card. One of them is similar to the one rtil posted - a direct USB device and the other one I have is inside my blue yeti microphone, which connects to my computer via USB cable. Both of those devices I paid €100+ for though.