Windows 7 No Speakers shown in Laptop and no sound

Verne

New Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2009
Ive just installed window 7 in a Gateway M255E laptop. Install was done to replace windows XP so it was a complete reinstall to windows 7 32 bit. Task bar has the speaker icon red X'd. Sound properties show only head sets. When headsets are plugged in the red X goes away.

Simply stated, windows says I got no speakers installed. Contacting Gateway has provided me nothing but a dead link to some corporation they say will provide support. I am guessing. The problem is there is no driver for the speakers installed. Under sound in the device manager no problems are shown, is all is working properly and the driver is current (microsoft high defintion audio dtd 13 July 2009. I've uninstalled this driver and rebooted with the same problem. I would assume that this driver is the one for the headsets.

So my question is what do I have to do , step by step since I am not that coputer literate, to get this laptop so I got sound out of the speakers?
 
Ive just installed window 7 in a Gateway M255E laptop. Install was done to replace windows XP so it was a complete reinstall to windows 7 32 bit. Task bar has the speaker icon red X'd. Sound properties show only head sets. When headsets are plugged in the red X goes away.

Simply stated, windows says I got no speakers installed. Contacting Gateway has provided me nothing but a dead link to some corporation they say will provide support. I am guessing. The problem is there is no driver for the speakers installed. Under sound in the device manager no problems are shown, is all is working properly and the driver is current (microsoft high defintion audio dtd 13 July 2009. I've uninstalled this driver and rebooted with the same problem. I would assume that this driver is the one for the headsets.

So my question is what do I have to do , step by step since I am not that coputer literate, to get this laptop so I got sound out of the speakers?
Go to Device Manager (right-click My Computer and then Properties -- Device Mgr is at the top of the list)
Find an icon for sound (it should have an exclamation mark). Right-click that icon and select Update Driver Software. It will likely find the driver(s) you need. If you still have Vista (maybe dual booting) you can look in device manager there and see what company to search for sound drivers.
 
You can also, do a Windows Update and check under "Optional Software" and if a driver is available it should show. Check mark it to download and it should resolve your problem.
 
I did go to device manager SOUND does not have an exclamation. The device shown there is Microsoft High Defintion Audo Device. Device manager states this is driver is current and working properly. I have unistalled this and rebooted, This device comes back and I still have no sound.

There is an exclamation marks under OTHER DECVICES. Mass storage controler and PCI simple communications Controller. I've tried updating the drivers for these and have had no success since manufactuer is unknown, I am at a loss what to do for these tings, or even knowing just what device thery refer to. Everything else seems to be working fine except for no speakers.
 
You should be able to get audio drivers for your system, which should take care of the sound. You probably need the chipset drivers also for the unknown device.

One way to see what the unknown device is would be to see what is installed and eliminate those.
 
UPDATE Checked another laptop

Guess I am going to have to rethink this problem. I checked another lap top that has working built in speakers. The device manager on this 2nd laptop show the identical information as the laptop with the non working speakers. So it would appear the drivers here is not the problem.

Right clicking the speaker in the taskbar of the 2nd laptop brings up the choices for the built in speakers. But does not list a headset option.

The taskbar speaker icon show noting but headset. This is red X'd untill I plug them in and then everything works fine.

For some reason windows 7 is not seeing these built in speakers I previously stated that I was getting an exclmation point showing in device manager under other devices. I uninstalled these in device manager and rebooted. They came back with the same RED X. The 2nd computer also has an exclamation point under other devices but everything there appears to be working fine. Of course there are no head sets listed here, hust speakers, I am going crazy!!!
 
This is a really dumb thing to check, but maybe it will work.

Open Control Panel, and in the upper right corner, where it says "View By: Category", change to "View By: Large Icons".

Click on the menu item: "Sound".

In the "Playback" tab, mouseover "Speakers" and right click. Scroll down the menu and select "Properties". A new window will pop up.

At the bottom of the new window, under "Device Usage", change the setting to "Use this device (enable)", click "Apply" and "OK" to apply the settings.

At the very least, these screens might show you a little bit more information that could be useful in troubleshooting the problem (if it doesn't fix it, that is).
 
There lies the problem. Everthing is just great till getting to that part of mousing over the speaker ICON. There is no speaker ICON in the playback tab of the sound control pannel, just the head set icon.

I am begining to think I must reinstall windows 7 and see if the speakers will appear, At first Ithought it must be the sound card drivers did not install. But the headsets, shown on that playback pannel, DO work when plugged into the laptop. This is an assumption on my part. I hope some one else has had this problem and knows how to correct it.
 
Ahh... I see. Sorry.

Well, you have a couple of problems. First off, your computer will not be 100% until you find all of the drivers you're still missing. I wanted to mention that up front, because you'll have a lot of searching to do.

In the meantime, if you really are ready to give up and reinstall anyway, here's an "all or nothing" solution for your soundcard:

You can download and try to install this driver at your own risk:
ftp://ftp.gateway.com/pub/hardware_support/drivers/win_xp/portable/m465/D00460-003-001.exe

It just might fix your sound problem. If it installs okay, use Windows Update to scan for a more current version of this driver. What this will do, is correctly identify your soundcard to Windows Update.

The rest of your laptop information can be found here:
http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Q106/GambitC/1008801sp9.shtml

That reference chart identifies what hardware you have. If you're missing a driver, you can Google the hardware name to find drivers for it. For example, I found the soundcard driver by searching for "SigmaTel 9250 drivers". Just please make sure you make those missing driver icons go away by installing the proper drivers, or you could have serious troubles later on.
 
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