Audio problems with my computer.

After managing to get a virus off my computer, the audio now fails to operate. Sounds and Audio Devices report 'No Audio Device', despite both being plugged in and both having the necessary drivers installed (I've reinstalled them enough times to know). The sound doesn't work for DivX player, Windows Media Player or VLC. Dxdiag's music sections says: 'DirectMusic test results: Failure at step 6 (Activating the IDirectMusicPort): HRESULT = 0x88780078 (No driver)'. It's all gone to hell.

However, it used to not work for Winamp, but when I went to Options > Preferences > double-clicked 'DirectSound output v2.43 (d) [out.ds.dll]' and switched to the sound card in 'Device'. Now I get audio.

Why is that? Why am I getting audio out of one program when all others won't, despite no sound card being detected? What's going on?

Do you actually have a separate sound card or is it a chip set on the mother board? If it's a chip set on the mother board make sure you download the correct driver from the manufacturer's web site or buy a sound card.

Before you do any of that, make sure Windows Audio is enabled and running in services.

I'm not sure about the sound card. What I do know is that I have SiS 7018 audio drivers. Still trying to find out what make the motherboard is.

What's the path to get to Windows Audio?

Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.

It's easy to tell if you have a sound card or not by following the speaker cable to the PC. If it's high on the side, then it's a chip set. If it's low in the middle, it's a sound card.

The speaker cable is in the middle, on the hard left hand side.

As for Windows Audio, it asks me to start the service, but when I do so, a window pops up saying 'Could not start the Windows Audio service on Local Computer. Error 3: the system cannot find the path specified'. I've looked it up, but couldn't find anything about it.

If that service isn't running, you can forget about sound. Why is doesn't start is a good question. Go to the control panel, administrative tools, event viewer. Look at the application and system logs for clues as to why it won't start.

It sounds like you have a chipset and not a sound card.

Looked through the Even Viewer and there are tons of error and warning reports now than compared to before my drivers went south.

Under Application, all the errors read: 'The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 80070003 from line 44 of d:\nt_qxp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.'

Also under Application, all the warnings read: 'Windows cannot unload your classes registry file - it is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.



For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.'

There are also a lot of errors in the system logs, most of them being: 'DCOM got error "The system cannot find the path specified. " attempting to start the service winmgmt with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{8BC3F05E-D86B-11D0-A075-00C04FB68820}

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.'

Is that any help?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837115

Scroll down to where it says Resolution and click on the link. Download the file and run it.

If that doesn't work, then try it under a different profile. If you don't have one create one or give the administrator account a password and use that account. In fact, I would do that first.

I had to download it from a third party site, because of validation issues (haha, copy), installed and tried running it and...I have no idea what to do. Tried reading the instructions, but it's mostly Greek to me. I'll give it another try in a few hours, gotta go now.