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NEC Versa e400 - sound not working!?

post #1 of 3
11/16/07 at 8:15pm
Thread Starter 
Hello, I have bought a Versa e400 notebook computer off ebay. Unfortunately the sound isn't working (unknown device in Device Manager).

I've downloaded both the appropriate sound drivers I can find (eg. realtek alc201, 'ac97') but in all cases, the Device Manager still displayes the yellow question mark ... when I try to manually install the driver, the computer complains 'can't find an appropriate driver for this device' or words to that effect.

I wonder if its because the version of XP I have on this computer is too old? It's Professional 2002 ... presumably that means it needs Service Packs? Should I try to obtain the most recent version of XP and do a fresh install on the notebook? (the sticker under the computer shows that the original op-sys was XP Home ... perhaps I should get that one on instead of XP Pro?)

Or first try getting the most recent 'Autopatcher' and try running that? Or is there something else I can try for this sound problem ... I happened to read somewhere else that the Microsoft UAA can be a problem when installing sound drivers, though I don't know if it applies to such an old computer as this e400.

I was told this elsewhere, but I don't really know what it means: "Try reinstalling chipset drivers before the sound drivers. However, if you have XP pro, hen the PB drivers may not work"

any ideas for me?
Thanks very much,
Charlie
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post #2 of 3
5/12/08 at 2:05am
Hi Charlie,

I have the exact same problem as you, I have the same notebook and the same operating system and I can't seem to get the sound working.

I have tried installing the drivers from the CD that came with the laptop. I've also tried the sound drivers from the NEC website. Neither of these drivers worked.

Have you managed to solve the problem since you posted your thread?

Regards,
David
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post #3 of 3
8/3/08 at 1:31pm
I know this might be a late reply, but at least it would be useful for posterity...
One willing to skip my story and get to the solution, should jump to section II, in order to solve your problem.

I. I have been having the same problem, having installed a fresh windows XP home edition with SP2 integrated on the same configuration as you.
Unfortunately, Nec's technical support website is horrible. I could not find the proper drivers in their US/ME/European web sites(my laptop was bought in Israel), and googling the laptop model yielded results in Asian websites. Having figured the origin of the computer, I tried their Asian branch website - which has been way more useful than all their other websites, but was wrong too, regarding the model of the soundcard(they claimed this model had a Realtek audio codec with the same , which was all wrong). The driver I download through their Asian website was good for nothing, but not without reason it seems.
I ran UBUNTU(distribution of Linux) and the sound card operated perfectly, and said it was a 'SIS SI7012' chipset card. So I went to SiS's website, where I also got my SiS 650 chipset driver and downloaded the driver, which seems to have refused to be installed – The installation GUI crashes whenever you try to install it. So I came about with a better solution, which practicly involved forcing the driver over windows, which finally worked.
II.
  • Whatever NEC's site say(e.g. Realtek in their Asian website) the Chipset of the sound card on the NEC VERSA E400 is SiS SI7012.
  • Download the driver for windows XP through SiS's website(www.sis.com under their download section)
  • Do not install it through the executin file.
  • Go to your desktop, right click on My Computer and there go to Hardware and click on device manager.
  • Right click on the unrecognized multimedia device, and chose to update its driver. Don't allow windows to search a driver on the internet(it would be useless anyhow), and pick the options of manually installing the driver from a list, and than chose that it is a multimedia/sound/game controller, and than choose have disk.
  • In the folder extracted from the zip, downloaded from SiS site, there will be a folder under the name of WinXP – pick the inf from there.
  • The system will hang for several seconds while installing the driver(do not restart, it took a few minutes for me).
  • Close everything and restart you computer.
  • It worked for me.
EDIT: The same thing can be applied to windows 2000, just go to the directory under this OS name, rather than to the WinXP and it should be fine, I think.
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