No audio device, no active mixer device
No audio device, no active mixer device
Sound advice
The audio on my Gateway never worked. I started by installing a driver. Using Belarc advisor (free), under multimedia, I found the sound card to be Creative SB Live! Value. I downloaded the driver, LiveDrvPack.exe, at Creative. Still no sound. Clicking control panel, Sound and audio devices, I found "No audio device installed". I proceeded to hardware, troubleshoot. A short way into troubleshoot I got the message "no active mixer device". Google searches suggested I reset BIOS and install the computer's multimedia pack. My BIOS (press F1 during turn on) had no audio setting.
I installed the multimedia pack (Gateway 2000 system CD) - still no sound. I then checked the sound card (Control panel, System, Device manager - Sound, video and game controllers) - it was OK. Was I missing a service or startup device? I clicked on "run" and ran "msconfig". Sure enough there was a disabled service setting "Windows audio". I must have disabled it earlier since the audio didn't work anyway. I enabled this service, restarted and voila! My audio resurrected!
Subsequently I downloaded the free version of RealPlayer. My computer now plays Doo Wop from internet juke boxes!
If "Windows Audio" doesn't appear among services in "msconfig", find it by running "services.msc".