No sound after BIOS update.

[Caeruleus]

I have a HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7470n Desktop PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition.   When I clicked Software & Driver Downloads I selected XP thinking that XP encompassed XP, Home, Professional, Media Center, ect.  Shortly after running the sp26713.exe BIOS update my system no longer has sound and all flash videos play 3x the speed they normally play.  Is there any way to fix this?

[erico]

Welcome to the HP Forum!

---

Caeruleus wrote:

I have a HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7470n Desktop PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition.   When I clicked Software & Driver Downloads I selected XP thinking that XP encompassed XP, Home, Professional, Media Center, ect.  Shortly after running the sp26713.exe BIOS update my system no longer has sound and all flash videos play 3x the speed they normally play.  Is there any way to fix this?

---

Windows XP Media Center edition does use the same drivers that the XP drivers in the software and driver section in your notebook's web support portal provides.

Have you looked in Device manager to see if the drivers are still loaded in all of your devices?


Kind regards,
erico

[Caeruleus]

Thank you kindly for the reply.  Yep, device manager has no unknown devices and it looks like my device drivers are working just fine.  If there's anything else you would like to know, just ask.

[erico]

---

Caeruleus wrote:

Thank you kindly for the reply.  Yep, device manager has no unknown devices and it looks like my device drivers are working just fine.  If there's anything else you would like to know, just ask.

---

Go to Sound in the Control Panel and set the sound device and test it.

Regards,

erco

[Caeruleus]

Went into volume control and set Volume Control (master volume), Wave, SWsynth, Front, Subwoofer, Center, Rear, SPDIF, Aux, CD Player, Line In, Microphone, Phone Line, & PC Speaker all to max and made sure no mute boxes were checked.  Mixer Device is Realtek AC97 Audio.  I heard no beeping as associated when changing volume and when I Start>Run>dxdiag>Sound Tab>Test DirectSound I get nothing.

*Edit:  In Sound and Audio Device Properties Device Volume is on max and mute is unchecked.  Speaker volume is high and tested sound using both Stereo Headphones and Monitor Stereo Speakers.  I am using on-board audio, not a sound card if that helps.

[erico]

---

Caeruleus wrote:

Went into volume control and set Volume Control (master volume), Wave, SWsynth, Front, Subwoofer, Center, Rear, SPDIF, Aux, CD Player, Line In, Microphone, Phone Line, & PC Speaker all to max and made sure no mute boxes were checked.  Mixer Device is Realtek AC97 Audio.  I heard no beeping as associated when changing volume and when I Start>Run>dxdiag>Sound Tab>Test DirectSound I get nothing.

*Edit:  In Sound and Audio Device Properties Device Volume is on max and mute is unchecked.  Speaker volume is high and tested sound using both Stereo Headphones and Monitor Stereo Speakers.  I am using on-board audio, not a sound card if that helps.

---

I suggest that you try to downgrade the BIOS to the previous version to see if sound returns. Why did you upgrade it?

Best regards,

erico

[Caeruleus]

As always, thanks for the reply.  I was under the assumption that you cannot upgrade the bios from windows as I was told long ago.  I thought perhaps I might be asked to insert a disk and clicked away with out thinking.  Sorry, that was a mistake on my part.

I'm not 100% certain but I believe the old 3.40 SP26648.exe BIOS that used to be up on eMachines and HP no longer can be found anywhere.  I would be happy to downgrade my BIOS to the previous version if I could find any way to do it.  Thanks for all the help erico.

[erico]

---

Caeruleus wrote:

As always, thanks for the reply.  I was under the assumption that you cannot upgrade the bios from windows as I was told long ago.  I thought perhaps I might be asked to insert a disk and clicked away with out thinking.  Sorry, that was a mistake on my part.

I'm not 100% certain but I believe the old 3.40 SP26648.exe BIOS that used to be up on eMachines and HP no longer can be found anywhere.  I would be happy to downgrade my BIOS to the previous version if I could find any way to do it.  Thanks for all the help erico.

---

Hi Caeruleus,

Actually you don't have much choice with most HP desktop PCs these days. Using the Softpaq method in Windows has been the trend at HP consumer PC support for a couple of years. . 

I checked the HP FTP server and cannot find it. Let's try another method. Open an elevated command prompt and type sfc /scannow. This will invoke the system file checker which will insopect all of Windows system files. It will replace those it deems to be corrupt or otherwise damaged. 

Please advise on your results after you have given this a shot.

Best regards,

erico

[Caeruleus]

I never even knew this Softpaq Download Manager existed.  I think it's just for updating multiple PC's at once though isn't it?  When I open it I don't see my model listed and I get the "The specific model could not be matched, all models will be shown." message so I assume it's only for business/enterprise PC's.

I opened the Command Prompt with administrator privileges and ran the System File Checker.  It ran well up till around 99% when I got:
Files that are required for windows to run properly must be copied to the DLL Cache.
Insert your Windows XP Professional CD2 now.
I had no Windows Professional CD, let alone a CD2 so I had to click cancel to skip the last 4-5 files.  I didn't get any other message popups so I assume everything went smoothly.  After uninstalling/reinstalling audio drivers I received the Not passed windows logo testing warning when installing the drivers from Realtek.  Not sure if that matters or not, so using the official HP audio drivers for now.  Is there any chance that the backup recovery partition has a BIOS backup copy?

Checklist so far:
[√] Reset BIOS via JCMOS1 jumper, CMOS battery, resetting ESCD, and loading up Defaults BIOS settings.
[√] Reinstalled Windows.
[√] Installed every possible Windows update.
[√] Enabled Onboard Audio in the BIOS.
[√] Made sure BIOS System Date and System time were correct values.
[√] Disconnected Internal AC'97 header and put jumpers on pins 5 & 6, 9 & 10 to make sure audio is only trying to go out the back panel.
[√] Uninstalled all sound/video drivers/codecs and tried reinstalling audio codecs from HP and Realtek.
[√] Made sure there were no unknown or disabled devices in the Device Manager.
[√] Confirmed all proper settings in Volume control.
[√] Confirmed all proper settings in Sounds and Audio Devices.
[√] Ensured that Start>Run>services.msc Windows Audio is Started/Automatic for Status/Startup Type.
[√] Ran Windows System File Checker.
[√] Taking further steps to narrow down audio problem before flashing BIOS.
[√] Make BIOS backup recovery disk.
[  ] Reflash BIOS.

Thanks for helping me narrow down this problem erico.  I really appreciate you taking valuable time out of your day to lend some support.

*Update: I found out that installing any audio driver will cause to flash video to play at 2x speed.  Uninstalling audio drivers causes video to play normal again.  Does installing the BIOS update really solve one problem then cause another?  If anyone installed a Audigy 2 ZS audio card then decided they wanted to upgrade, replace, or sell it then they would lose their onboard audio.  I think this may be a major flaw in this BIOS update.