I went through this same insanity for two years on two different computers on XP Pro and I went through the whole hours and days of Troubleshooting ..updating drivers in the device manager etc...checking BIOS...all that hours and hours of nothing working...
Finally I went to
www.download.com and updated my realtek c97 Audio Driver directly from them. I had updated it in the device manager many times with the message successfully saying...I had the best driver etc already .....but I figured maybe to download it from them directly. I had tried everything else.
I did..it worked in five seconds....insane!!!
It was that easy.....so...if you have the Code 10, This device cannot start...your Audio Settings are grayed out with no audio device detected and your device manager showing the driver as working.....go directly to the manufacturer for the download or
www.download.com to get it..FREE.
I could have saved hours and hours and hours of stress if someone would have said...maybe instead of updating from the device manager do it from the manufacturer..but than again..Microsoft would rather have up pay for support..spend hours on their help site and update to Windows 7....
Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hope this helps.....what a waste of time...
