[MillerTime]

Running xp pro on a dell dimension 5150 with pentium 4 processor, motherboard sound and nic with intel chipset, ati x600 display card, and 4 gb ram.

Replaced an ati x600 256 mb video card with a new ati hd2600xt 512 mb video card. Removed old drivers and installed drivers (the program only allows you to select all video and audio drivers). System restarted where the intro to windows sound played followed by silence. The video seemed crisp for viewing pictures and the screen. When videos were played, they were choppy (could not move at full frame rate). I looked at videos on utube and they were showing 2 to 3 picture or frame changes in a 5 minute video with no sound (no problems prior to installing the card and software).

Called tech support and found out ati is owned by diamond multimedia and amd. Support person was like a character from “fast times at ridgemont high”. He said, “dude, what’s the problem?” I told him about the problems and that I wanted to use the audio from the motherboard chipset which he said that the new display board was causing the problem. He had me remove the ati audio program and drivers from the device driver screen. When restarted, the on board bios for the audio was still factory enabled where the software should have disabled it. Still no consistent sound or improved graphics. He said that either the pcba was defective or that my bios needed upgrading. I had the newest bios installed recently and that the pcba seemed to be not at fault. I removed the on board sound drivers and files and reinstalled them without success. I asked for a supervisor, which he replied that “mellow” called in sick today and the general manager was not present. He took my name and info when I requested that they return my call when available. He provided no other resources for help.

I removed the driver pcba and reinstalled the old one. I deleted the ati, diamond, amd, video drivers from the program list. I then tried to remove the windows media player (version 9). I searched the program file and deleted the associated files and folders from the manufactures stated previously. I was unable to remove the media files and folder since the windows program refused to all me to. Restarted the system and no sound.

I reinstalled the motherboard sound drivers, checked the bios for audio being enabled, and installed the latest media player. Checked the sound setup and confirmed that only the new drivers were enabled and selected the proper speakers and jacks. Still sound during startup but nothing after everything is loaded where they must be corrupted when trying to play anything (videos, audio files, etc.). The video playback is good for files with no sound but still corrupt for utube videos (choppy pictures or black). I tried the microsoft update site and loaded all their recommendations with no success. There are no video or audio programs installed at this time other than media player (all others were deleted from the program list and then the associated folders removed from the program files). Only the motherboard drivers, along with the generic microsoft drivers, are located in the audio, video and special card device manager files. The microsoft generic files are enabled from the software program.

My thoughts now are that there is a general driver(s) located in a win.ini or system.ini file that is corrupt or missing. I have not started looking for any such files yet but have looked through the media player, audio and video control panels with confirming the current settings and no success in remedying the problem. Or, perhaps there is a go-back feature where I can to select a date where the computer was running fine. I miss viewing my videos and sound while using the computer due to the pathetic consequences of installing a product that the requirements are met by the computer I own.

Any and all suggestions are welcome!