Volume Control

[n0]

Hi.

Half of the time when I reboot my computer (1.6 GiG athlon, win98, 1GiG Ram, 128 mb graphics card, Embeded into the Motherboard Sound Card) I get the Volume Control(little icon in STray that looks like a megaphone). The other half of the time I do not. When I don't have it, I can not play any of my games. When I do have it, everything works normaly. Any help would be appricated.

`N0

[BlazinDragon]

Hmmmm, i might've had a similar problem- my sound isnt working porperly, but try this suggestion:

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del ONCE!!! and then delete everything except Explorer- thats where you operate on. Then move your mouse over the task bar. It sould be gone.

If your using a mac- I Cant help joo :o


~Good Luck!~

[Link]

Originally posted by N0B0DY
Hi.

Half of the time when I reboot my computer (1.6 GiG athlon, win98, 1GiG Ram, 128 mb graphics card, Embeded into the Motherboard Sound Card) I get the Volume Control(little icon in STray that looks like a megaphone). The other half of the time I do not. When I don't have it, I can not play any of my games. When I do have it, everything works normaly. Any help would be appricated.

`N0

Do you mean your games don't work when it is gone? Or do you mean that no sound works when it is gone?

If you double-click on it, does it bring up a standard Windows volume control mixer window? Or does it bring up some soundcard-specific window?

If you go into Control Panel->Multimedia, there should be an option in the sound section to place a volume icon in the system tray. Try playing around with that (If it is not there, it is somewhere else in Control Panel; I'm not completely sure because I don't use Win98 any more)

[n0]

Ok, let me rephrase it. One of two things happen every time I boot my computer:

1) Volume Control isn't in the Stray. No games work.

2) Volume Control is in the Stray. Everything works normaly.

Just now, I tried Multimedia in the control panel, and "Show Volume control on the taskbar" was greyed out. So was everything in playback. Right now there is no volume control in the taskbar.


No sound works when it is gone, and it brings up the standard windows volume control.

`N0

[BlazinDragon]

Well- if u really cant solve it, maybe you should RE-INSTALL the computer, that would almost indefinitely fix da problem ^_^;;

[Link]

I'm sure it would, but that should only be done as a last resort.

I'd like some more details on how games don't work. Do you mean they crash, or give error messages, or what? If there are error messages, do you think you could copy and post some of them here?

It looks like (from stuff being greyed out) that your sound driver might just not be starting up for some reason. At a time when the volume control is missing, go to Control Panel->System, and go to the Device Manager tab. Check the list for any sound related devices. Do they have icons like an exclamation mark, a question mark, or an "X" beside them? (If they do, they might already be expanded out of the tree). Double-click on them and see what it says in there. There should be a message either saying "This device is working properly" or some error message.

Oh also, just to try something, the volume control icon program is called "systray". When it is on, try Ctrl+Alt+Deleting systray, and see if the problems occur. Also try running it and see if it fixes anything.

[n0]

Right now everything is working. I'll reboot and try to play some games. Hrm... Thats weird. In Control panel>multimedia, everything that was greyed out when the sound wasn't working is now selectable. BTW, where is the Systray program? How do you start it up? I deleted it out of Ctr Alt Delete, and the games still worked. in Control Panel->System everything is working properly.

-{reboot}-

Gah! Systray is working... Rebooting again.

-{reboot}-

Gah! Systray is working... Rebooting again.

-{reboot}-

Ok, error message for jazz: "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

If the problem persists, contact the program vendor"

Under details: "JAZZ2 caused a general protection fault
in module JAZZ2.EXE at 017f:0049085c.
Registers:
EAX=0085effc CS=017f EIP=0049085c EFLGS=00210202
EBX=bff55827 SS=0187 ESP=65636341 EBP=000006cb
ECX=0085efcc DS=0187 ESI=0085f8f8 FS=49d7
EDX=0085f056 ES=0187 EDI=0085f8dd GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
64 a3 88 8c 4f 00 41 98 47 4d 00 89 0d 8c 8c 4f
Stack dump:"

That happend as soon as it got past the splash screen. It never even made it to the menu.

Error for Worms Armageddon: "WA caused an invalid page fault in
module DIRECTX2D.DLL at 017f:02af28b0.
Registers:
EAX=02c49e80 CS=017f EIP=02af28b0 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=10000000 SS=0187 ESP=00e1fb6c EBP=00e1fb78
ECX=10042fd4 DS=0187 ESI=10042fd4 FS=1157
EDX=00000000 ES=0187 EDI=00000028 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 00 85 c0 74 18 8b 0d c8 a7 b1 02 85 c9 74 06
Stack dump:
10042fd0 10001103 10042fd0 00e1fb84 1000139b 10042fd0 00e1fb9c 10024f7a 10042fd0 00e1fbc8 10027995 00000001 00e1fba8 1000170f 10042fd0 00e1fbd8 "

For a N64 Emulator I have I get "Audio plugin error"

THere is a sample for what dosnt work, and how.

Oh, and BTW, there is no volume control Icon, and Systray is in the close program ctr alt delete thingy. Under Multimedia, eveything in the playback section is greyed out, but all the devices in the system properities are working properly.

[Link]

Well the reason the games don't work is because DirectX is having a problem with the sound device "missing". Try updating your DirectX to the latest version, and that might at least let you play games (though with no sound).

But I don't know why the sound device isn't starting. You say it is normal in Device Manager? Are you sure it is there?

You could try Killerrabbit's suggestion of reinstalling Windows, and that would probably fix it (you can reinstall without losing files), but I don't think you need to unless this is a major annoyance. Also try updating or reinstalling the sound driver and see if that makes a difference.

[n0]

I think I could get it to work every time IF i knew where the Systray proggie is. As in C:\Windows or where? My Find files dosn't work, so thats why I need to know where it is, just can't search for it.

[Turtleslayer]

Systray should be in c:\windows\system (or applicable drive letter), but I don't see how that would help.

I believe the likely cause is the amount of RAM you're using. Windows 98 has problems running on a system with over 512 MB RAM. I had a similar experience with my sound card (game theatre XP) driver with just 512 MB RAM, especially when running other programs at startup. There may be a workaround--see this MS KB article--http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q253912&LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=vcache&rnk=2&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=W98--but I don't know if that will solve all your problems. My advice would be to upgrade to windows 2000 or XP. If that's possible it would probably be the easiest solution.

Oh, yes, and if you do upgrade to windows XP/2000, I'd recommend dual booting--install XP/2000 to a new partition and keep windows 98 for compatibility with some programs.

[Tik]

I have another suggestion, though it is unlikely. It could be that your sound card is slightly out of the slot. If you have an onboard sound card, feel free to ignore the rest of this completely.

I sometimes have this problem when I mess around inside my comp, but the sound card is kind of in a strange position and the far end can come out and thus when I restart my computer there is no volume control, or any sound for that matter, since it wasn't detecting that the card was physically there.

The reason games may not work is because it is trying to start the game when there is no sound capabilities, and thus it generates an error when it tries to load anything sound-related. I know in Jazz2 you can get passed this by setting an option at the command line. I myself used to experience this and the whole thing resulted in making a program that I uploaded to J2O called Jazz2Debugger or something like that. Basically all it does is make using the command line options for Jazz2 easier, and in there is an option for Jazz not to start up any sound devices. Using this you would probably still be able to play, just with no sound.

[Cpp]

Don't use on-board sound cards! That's why I have chosen Creative SB Audigy 2. Works perfectly.

[n0]

If I wasn't completly broke AND if there were not a hundred things I want to buy that where higher priority than a sound card, I would get one. So, unless you all send me a million dollars I will hafta find another way around it.

[Turtleslayer]

I still think it's a windows problem with the amount of RAM you're using.

Do you have the same problem after disabling the onboard sound?