Hi, I'm having trouble with my computer. I have absolutely no sound and I can't update to SP3. I had issues with the computer before and ordered the oem install disks but when I tried to install them it didn't work because it said that some of the install files were missing. So i tried my friend's xp home sp1 disk and it installed but wouldn't update. So I have a dell with windows xp home media center 2002. I used that disk to install windows. I also had an issue with the old hard drive, it wouldn't allow windows to install because it had bad sectors on it so i removed it and put in a 40GB HDD. I have gotten it to where windows is installed and it's SP2 but sometimes my Iexplorer just shuts itself down and sometimes programs just close themselves. It won't let me update to SP3. After windows installation I went into the device manager and installed the drivers for my audio and modem. I used the "search for software automatically." option and it found them through windows update. I have the rest of the computer working pretty good but that doesn't do me a whole lot of good if I have no sound... The sound worked for a few days after I installed the drivers and then it tried to update to SP3 and when the install failed I restarted the computer and now my sound doesn't work. Can anybody give me guidance on how to fix any of the problems I am having? Thanks.

Turn off the Automatic updates. Control Panel -> Automatic Updates -> Select "Download and let me choose whether to install them." This way you can do an advanced update to install updates except SP3. As for SP3 not installing we need a little more to go on like what error do you get when installing it?

Is the computer running an AMD processor?

Yes, it's running an amd anthlon 5000+ 2ghz. And all of the sudden it's now coming to a blue screen error before windows starts. I can't even get windows to load. and I'm not sure why it's doing this...

Have a look at the link below. http://www.softwarepatch.com/window...

I recently had a sound problem on my dell laptop with Windows XP. My computer said there was no audio device found, and it happened after upgrading to SP3. I found a helpful thread at this website: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-... basically I ran "services.msc" and scrolled down to windows audio and found it disabled. I set the startup type to automatic, and it worked. I got my sound device back, and my speakers are now working. I was on the phone with Dell support, and they said I could only fix it by reloading Windows XP which would cause me to lose all of my files! I can't believe it was this easy.