Sound issues with my EVIL laptop

[mzberryrican]

I posted this in another forum but no other replies have been given after my last post. So I am forwarding over here to see if anyone could help me. My laptop is just actn nutty...

March 7, 2010 --- So I have this HP DV6629wm laptop that Ive had for a couple years now. The laptop had Windows Vista Home Prem until I upgraded to Window 7 Home Premium in January. Well, recently the audio on my laptop decided to fade out. After awhile it would work again. If I restarted the the laptop it would also work. So I assumed it was something temporary. Well now the audio is not working at all. Now my laptop speaker on the bottom taskbar displays the red cross. Ive checked my Device Manager to see if there was an issue there but the Sound speaker icon was not even there. I did go to HP.com and tried to reinstall the driver update. Which was the sp44700.exe file. Ive tried using the HP Advisor option and tried doing that automatic fix. There I get a yellow triangle with exclamation mark by the information stating that a change was made to the audio driver. Well it doesnt give me much to go by. Ive tried looking online to see if there are other options to fix this issue but I cannot come up with one. I pretty much open for options. I really dont want to take it to a repair guy if its something simple.

March 7, 2010 4:32pm - Ok so up till now this is what is going on. About 2 hours ago I turned on my laptop and the audio came back up. I decided to play a movie file I got on my laptop and let it run for a while. Well I get back on my laptop and decide to look for some information online and the audio again is gone. I had to move my laptop to another room so I did turn it off and back on again. Well the same issue is showing again with the red cross on my audio. It does state "No Audio Output Device Installed". Also the troubleshooting came up and gave me the info "Hardware changes might not have been detected" with the "Detected" in italics afterwards with a yellow triangle exclamation mark inside icon. I had already tried installying that sp40170 before and tried again. I get the error message "Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the device for this driver". So that is what is going on up till now.

March 8, 2010 --- So last nite I turn on my laptop and the sound is back on? Weird huh? So it was operating fine till like 20 minutes into using my laptop the sound has gone mute again. I just dont know what to do with this laptop. lol Well any suggestion could help.

[truenorth]

Your attempts to upgrade the drivers for your sound card are logical and useally appropriate given the change of operating system.However as you note (for whatever reason) they have not been successfull so far.Have you tried to contact either the manufacturer of your sound card (to see if indeed they do provide drivers that will allow it to work with win 7)? Have you tried contacting HP to see if they can be of any assistance (particularly if the sound card was a part of the original computer configuration)? I do believe you are on the right track but you have not so far been successfull.truenorth

[mzberryrican]

The soundcard is the original. I havent tampered with it at all. The only changes made to the laptop is the mem upgrade to 4gigs and win 7 home premium.

But I will try contacting the HP co. see what they tell me. I am just trying to take any step I can do at home before approaching the big guys. My strong guess up till now is that the soundcard is just faulty all of a sudden and needs replacing. Because one day it all disappears and then the next its back on for a few minutes and then it mutes again. I just want the this to get better lol.

And thanks for the reply

[truenorth]

Your welcome. I was not suggesting yet that you involve HP for any repairs--just to see what they have to say re the o/s upgrade and their soundcard. However generally speaking if you do need to replace the soundcard it then may become necessary to involve a repair shop (unless you feel competent to enter the innards of the laptop). Generally laptops are not as easy to change anything inside (unlike a desktop). So if it gets to that tread cautiously. I do really suspect it has more to do with the compatibility with the o/s upgrade --unless this problem existed before the upgrade as well.truenorth
P.S. I just went over and took a quick peak at your laptop on the HP site. If you have not done so i would check that out as there is a reference to win 7 there. Also what caught my eye was a battery recall that you may not be aware of.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3593174&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=fr&lang=fr&cc=us

[mzberryrican]

So I contacted the HP co. to discuss the issue. Well the lady told me since my laptop was obviously out of warranty I would have 2 options for tech phone support $99.00 for one yr or $49.99 for next 2wks. BUT she told me that online chat from HP is free. So obviously I approached that option quickly...lol

So I spoke to this guy and explained my situation. He got my Serial# and Prod# and my BIOS vers. Which all was ok and all up to date. I was asked about my drivers being uninstalled and then installed again was done. Which I had done quite a few times already. His final verdict was to basically do a backup of my files and restore my laptop to factory settings. His theory is that in the process of my upgrade to 7 there is a possibility that the file is either corrupted or missing. So I am up to that point right now. I am gonna put my system recovery disc from Vista and start all over. Then upgrade to 7 without installing any prev programs I had. Hopefully this will work.

I did look into HP.com's website and the battery recall was already notified to me by my Windows Action Center. I didn't have a faulty battery.