I've posted this issue on other forums (running out of suggestions) and am moderately pc literate. The following description of my problem will be long-winded, but I see elsewhere on this forum where more info is usually asked for. So here goes:

Compaq Presario 5000 Series (5BW160)
Intel Pentium III 700 MHz
128MB SDRAM
ESS Technologies ES1988/9 Allegro-1 Audiodrive sound
20GB hard drive
CD-ROM dirve
CD-Writer drive--Ultima Electronics Artec WRR-52x
56K Lucent Win Modem
10/100 Accton Technology Corp. EN-1207D Fast Ethernet Adapter

I'm trying to get a friend's pc up and running again. He brought it to me with 2 OS's on it (Win98 and Win2k), so I formatted the HD and installed Win98SE. He's lost his recovery CDs--needless to say, I've had to search the web to get all the drivers to make things all work again.

Everything is all OK again except that I can't get one iota of sound out of it.

In Device Manager, there are 3 devices listed under Sound, video and game controllers: ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM); Gameport joystick; and MPU-401 Compatible. "General tab" in Properties on each device show "This device is working properly" and "Exists in all hardware profiles".

Driver tabs show "To view details about the driver files loaded for this device, click Driver File Details. To update the driver files for this device, click Update Driver" on each device as well.

Driver File Details for ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM) show the following files:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\es198x.sys
C:\WINDOWS\System\VMM32\ntkern.vxd
C:\WINDOWS\System\MMDEVLDR.VXD

All other devices in Device Manager show no problems.

In Control Panel>Multimedia>Audio tab shows Playback as ESS Allegro and Recording as ESS Allegro. MIDI tab shows Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Devices tab shows:
Audio Devices
Audio for ESS PCI Audio (WDM)

MIDI Devices and Instruments
MIDI for MPU-401 Compatible
Roland MPU-401
MIDI for WDM-based Device
Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth

Mixer Devices
Mixer for ESS PCI Audio (WDM)

Line Input Devices
Line Input for ESS PCI Audio (WDM)

Media Control Devices
ActiveMovie MCI Driver
CD Audio Device (Media Control)
MIDI Sequencer Device (Media Control)
Motion Video Device (Media Control)
PIONEER LaserDisc Device (Media Control)
VISCA VCR Device (Media Control)
Wave Audio Device (Media Contro)

Video Compression Codecs
Cinepak ™
Indeo ™ R3.1
Indeo ™ R3.2
Indeo video 5.04
msh 261 (M261)
msh 263 (M263)
RLE
VDOnet VDOWave Video Codec
Video 1

Audio Compressions Codecs
Lernout & Hauspie CODECs
Microsoft CCIII G.711 A-Law and u-Law CODEC
Microsoft G.723.1 CODEC
Microsoft G.723.1 CODEC
Indeo audio software
Microsoft IMA ADPCM CODEC
Microsoft ADPCM CODEC
Microsoft GSM 6.10 Audio CODEC
DSP Group TrueSpeech ™ Software CODEC
Windows Media Audio
Sipro Lab Telecom ACELP.net audio codec
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec (decoder only)
Microsoft PCM Converter

Video Capture Devices

Joystick Devices
Gameport Joystick

When I go to Control Panel>Sounds>Events>Start Windows and click the "Play" arrow, it looks like it plays, but not a peep is heard. "Schemes" shows "Windows Default".

The speaker icon in System Tray opens and all controls are operable. The desktop speakers I'm using (cheapies) work on my pc, but not this one. I've plugged them into all 3 holes on the back of the pc--still not a peep.

This should be enough info for a true pc techie to chew on. Hope it's not something stupid or obvious on my part that I've overlooked, but I've been after this box of bolts for the past week and a half trying to get it to say something--anything. LOL

I have tried wav's, cda's--no sound. I've also removed and reinstalled "multimedia"--no sound. Additionally, I've removed and installed Allegro till I'm blue in the face. LOL I've gone to Compaq's site, ESS's site, and numerous other sites downloading driver sets for this sound chip (removing old ones before trying new ones)--no sound.

Got to snooping around and went into SAFE MODE>Device Manager>Sound, video and game controllers and found the following Devices and corresponding Driver File Details for each:

ESS Allegro PCI Audio (WDM) ***APPEARS IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS AS OK***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\es198x.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\ntkern.vxd
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\KS.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSCLOCKF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSVPINTF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSDATA.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSINTERF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSPROXY.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSUSER.DLL

Gameport Joystick ***APPEARS IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS AS OK***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VJOYD.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSANALOG.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSJSTICK.DRV

Microsoft DirectMusic SW Synth (WDM) ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\DMUSIC.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd

Microsoft Kernel Audio Mixer ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\KMIXER.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd

Microsoft Kernel GS Wavetable Synthesizer ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SWMIDI.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd

Microsoft Kernel System Renderer ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SYSAUDIO.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\KS.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSCLOCKF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSVPINTF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSDATA.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSINTERF.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KSPROXY.AX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SBEMUL.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\REDBOOK.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\STREAM.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\PORTCLS.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\GM.DLS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\WDMAUD.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KUSER.DLL
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WD,AID/DRV

Microsoft Streaming Clock Proxy ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\MSPCLOCK.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd

Microsoft Streaming Service Proxy ***NOT IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\MSKSSRV.sys
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\NTKERN.vxd

MPU-401 Compatible ***APPEARS IN NORMAL MODE WINDOWS AS BEING OK***
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSMPU401.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSMPU401.DRV

Have I blundered onto something here? Is it normal to have more devices listed in Safe Mode than in normal Windows mode?

First of all, (providing you currently have an apropriate driver) check that you have not muted the output, double click the speaker icon in the system tray.

Make sure that you have the speakers plugged in to the speaker output. Newer cards have a green socket, older ones have a speaker icon stamped into the backing plate.

Next click on start, run and type 'dxdiag'. Once tis has loaded, run the tests on the audio tab for each off the available devices.

It sounds like everything is setup OK with the card and windows believes it's working. If it's not what Rimfire suggested, is it possible you're using non-powered speakers and the compaq needs powered ones?

Hi Dave, I'm glad you went through and checked all of that! I just skimmed.

The next thing to check is in control panel, multimedia. On the audio tab, make sure that it is a valid device that is being used. I recently came across a computer that wanted to use a modem as a sound card!

I've done all that you have suggested and everything seems OK. I have this issue posted on numerous other forums and one of the other forums has finally told me what you have DAVEINCAPS. I'm going to give that a whirl and I'll post back if it solves the problem.

BTW, can you tell me how to mark this issue as solved if that is indeed the solution?

Keeping my fingers crossed........

You can just post back if that fixes it. There's no official end-of-thread routine here.

If it's not the powered speaker thing then maybe the sound chipset it just bad. Occasionally a hardware item will be good enough to be recognized by the OS and accept the drivers but not good enough to run properly.

Or maybe the speaker jack is bad. I'm inclined to think it's a hardware problem since everything seems OK with the software.

Also I'm assuming everything associated with the sound is enabled in cmos/bios setup, otherwise windows probably wouldn't see it at all. But you may want to check to make sure.

Problem solved!!!!!! Big thanks to everyone for the help and suggestions--especially to DAVEINCAPS.

Solution: Compaq uses powered speakers and I wasn't.

Thanks again.

I'm glad you got it fixed. Most of the onboard sound setups don't have an amplifier and so must have amplified speakers.