unusual "no mixer found" problem...

[jdmnash]

I keep getting an error that states: "There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Add Hardware. This program will now close."

After doin a little digging I determined that the windows audio service was running and "functioning properly". I also didn't find any ! in my control panel. All Audio devices claim that they are functioning properly.

I tried to allow my computer to search for new hardware and windows finds my SoundMAX integrated sound card (mobo in sig). so with the original mobo cd in the drive windows finds and installs its driver but it keeps getting hung up on "smwdmif.dll". it says that it cannot be copied to its destination directory. (C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\Core) Every time I try to access that directory windows freezes up.

I know that a lot of people have had a problem with this dll but all resolutions result in the windows audio service or driver installation. ill keep poking around while I wait for a response.

Thanks, Jart

[jdmnash]

problem solved!!! this one was tricky.

After the first post i wanted to see if I could access the directory from the command prompt. I got a "Data Error Cyclic Redundancy Check" check error. I googled that and stumbled upon the chkdsk command. i went into the command prompt, (start>run>"cmd.exe") and navigated to that directory with the cd command then typed "chkdsk /f". the /f switch fixes problems encountered when checking the disk. this command schedules a check disk to execute at the next boot up. while it was running i noticed that it was deleting an "incomplete index" (?) called aeaudio.(???) and figured that was my problem and it was!

A disk defrag may have also fixed the problem. i know that after analyzing my disk with disk defrag i have a lot of fragmented files but i don't have the required amount of %free disk space (%10 ?) so i wanted to avoid the time of sifting through files. I also didn't want to do a system restore because of recently updated programs.

hope this will help someone else out with similar problems.

sorry to ramble,
jart