missing soundcard - but it is there !

[v551dln]

please help this problem is driving me dotty. . . my advent laptop has gone silent on me and I have checked device manager and everything is where it should be except that I get the message soundcard (realtech ac97) is installed and drivers loaded but not 'started'. How do I get in the system to start it when my laptop will not recognise its even there. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and nothing helps. There does not appear to be a better driver than the one already in the system. Please stop me going insane. . . thanks

ps it is not that the sound is muted or anything like that the actual computer does not think it even has a sound card.

[RATTER15]

The AC97 is the on board generic sound card (part of the motherboard) it sounds to me like it may have a fault, take it along to a PC shop and ask them to check it.

[dodgyshirt]

If it shows up in Device Manager then your laptop has recognized it.
As Ratter says, this is an integral component of the laptop's motherboard.
Are you sure you have not disabled it tinkering with the BIOS ?

[v551dln]

thanks for the advice, however I lost my patience and decided to do a full system restore, hurray all back to normal, spent a fun day reinstalling everything but now back to normal. thanks for taking time to answer, love answerbank people.

[wan_amri]

I had this kind of problem too few days ago. It solved the problem by downloading updates from MS website.