Help: My computer does not have volume anymore

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I installed WinXP on a new computer about 2 months ago.   I finally had time to play around with the computer some more to set it up for use in my jukebox cabinet and just realized the computer does not have sound.   Even the basic WinXP system sounds do not even work (ie: click sounds when opening folders, etc....).    I wanted to make sure my volume setting was not muted so I went to the icon tray to locate the little grey "speaker" icon which represents the volume settings, but to my surprise the icon is not there.

I went in to "My Computer/Control Panel/Sounds" and it tells me "No Audio Device".

The sound is built into the motherboard of the computer.   

Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can get sound back on my computer? 

Do I need to reload drivers?  Do I need to reload the entire operating system (hope not)?   

** I do not remember if the computer ever had sound capability or whether I lost the sound recently.   The computer was given to me for free so the first thing I did was install WinXP cleanly, installed Windows Media Player as well as some video and audio codecs (which I used on my other computers) to allow WMP to play certain video/audio files and then put the computer aside since I got busy.   

[SavannahLion]

Check the hardware device list and see if the device is having a problem. Most likely it's just a missing driver but you want to check to make sure it's not some other problem like some kind of conflict.

After that, install the audio drivers.

The audio driver library that comes with XP is nowhere as extensive as the video library. So whenever you install, reload, or reconfigure your PC, you should always check your hardware device list to make sure everything is recongized properly. There's usually a basic hardware checklist I have for new installs before I install ANY OTHER software. It makes trouble shooting mounds easier.

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Oh yeah, I already went into the "My Computer/Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager" and went under "Sounds" and the following stuff was listed (see pic).  I checked "Properties" for each of these and they all stated the device was working properly.

You will also notiuce that there is a "Multimedia Audio Controller" listed under the "Other devices" section.  I tried uninstalling this and then rebooting.  My computer said it found new hardware (ie: the Multimedia Audio Controller) but could not find the drivers to install.   

I believe the motherboard is an AMD Athlon 2800+

How do I go about reinstalling audio drivers?  Do I do this from the WinXP disk or must I download something from AMD?  If drivers should come from AMD, then perhaps someone can help me with a link to the drivers I need ..... hardware is not my stronge suit .... thanks

[SavannahLion]

You're missing drivers alright. It depends on the integration on how many drivers you're going to need.

I believe the motherboard is an AMD Athlon 2800+

We'll need more than that. We need to know the board model and manufacturer. If the board isn't using integrated NIC or Audio, we'll need to know the model numbers of those cards as well.

You will also notiuce that there is a "Multimedia Audio Controller" listed under the "Other devices" section.  I tried uninstalling this and then rebooting.  My computer said it found new hardware (ie: the Multimedia Audio Controller) but could not find the drivers to install.

Unlike video cards, there was never a defined basic audio interface. So it's not surprising for Windows to lack a driver for the audio card. It is surprising that no network drivers were installed. Must be a funky on-board controller.

In any case, we need to know the MB model and if the NIC and Audio are seperate cards, we need to know those models too.

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I looked on the motherboard PCB and saw "A7N8X-LA".   I believe this is a model number. 

The motherboard has integrated Ethernet, Sound, Video etc.. on the board.   However. I needed to use dual monitors so I installed a Video card to the system in a AGP slot and that works fine.   The video card is a Radeon 7000 (it has "TS32 MVDR5" on it).  I believe the card is a 32 Meg card.

When I got the computer and loaded WinXP, I tried to connect to the ethernet via the onboard integrated ethernet port connection and it did not work.   I just thought it was broken so I installed a separate ethernet card to the system into a PCI slot and this worked fine.  Now knowing the sound does not work, this is probably why the integrated ethernet connection did not work either ..... missing drivers.   Anyway, I removed the ethernet card I added to the system now since I believe once I install the required motherboard drivers, then I will not need that card anymore.

[SirPeale]

Your board uses an NVidia chipset.

Get the drivers for your board from the Asus website.

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/audio/alc650/alc650_wdma341.zip

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Yes, this worked like a charm ..... thanks a lot everyone!