Help with my computer, please? (1 Viewer)

[Julian Reville]

Somehow I have screwed up the sound on my work computer. It's a HP running XP, with the XP backup disc as a separate partition on the HD, and a DVD drive. I still get the Windows opening and closing sounds, but all other sounds are either garbled, absent, or at a VERY low volume. Also Explorer refuses to save any passwords.

Anything easy I can try to do to fix this, without reformating the HD and reloading Windows and all of my programs?

 

[Colin Davidson]

Hi Julian,

For audio problems I would first suggest that you check for updated drivers on the sound cards website. If you are using the current drivers then perhaps removing and reinstalling those drivers would fix the problem. Often times when you run Windows update there will be a driver update from Microsoft which I have found at times to actually be older than the driver that you currently have.

As to the password issue in Explorer, I am presuming that you mean Internet Explorer. If you are...

Click on Tools
Click Internet Options
Click the "Content" tab
Click "AutoComplete"
Make sure that "Usernames and Passwords" is checked
And you can also decide whether you wish to be prompted to save or not by checking the box below it.

Also note the Clear Passwords button. This allows you to clear all the passwords you have saved in the past and start fresh.

On a security note - since it is a "work" computer you may wish to only save passwords to sites that do not contain potential personal info that someone else could access. If it is a networked system your IT people could login as you simply by resetting your network password. As an IT person myself I would find it deplorable if someone were to do that but always keep security in mind.

Hope that helps. Let me know about the sound issue.

Colin

*Edited to add the security note and fix some spelling boo-boos.

 

[Julian Reville]

Thanks Colin,

Unfortunately, nothing so far seems to help. I've was on-line with HP help yesterday and they have had me delete and reinstall drivers, load default values in the bios. Still screwed up.

I really think this is a software conflict somewhere, what with all of the programs that seem to load themselves: Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WINDVD, PC Friendly DVD, InterVideo DVD.

Regular old CDs on WMP sound fine; Real Player has little or no sound, DVDS have no dialogue; Windows logon & logoff sounds are normal, all other sounds are VERY faint.

As for Internet Explorer, I checked and all of the boxes were checked. Windows asks me if I want to save passwords, I click yes, but they are not saved.

It's getting frustrating.