Follow the Guidelines to Update Sound Card Driver

Some guys might experienced such frustrating conditions that they got no sound from their computer or the sound muffled one time or another when they changed their operating system or new software. If the manufacturer of the sound card has created a new driver for it, they might solve the problem by installing it. They also might need to update drivers to play sound in new formats, such as RealAudio.

Before updating the sound driver, some computer newbies would like to know what type does their driver is. So they may need some instructions on detecting the sound card.

When they get a new computer, it is easy to determine what is contained in it. If they are buying a used computer or receiving a pass-me-down computer, they don't know what it has installed in it. A sound card is a very important piece of hardware, especially in the multimedia-rich Internet of today. In this case, check theyr computer to see if it has a sound card or not.

Step 1

Check the front or back of the computer to see if there are audio jacks for speakers, microphone or audio inputs. These plugs are typically in a standard color code of green, pink, and blue. If they can find no plugs available, then it is a good bet that the computer doesn't have a sound card installed.

Step 2

Open the control panel, Start>Settings>Control Panel. Look for the icon that says "Sound and Audio Devices." Open the icon and look on the "Sounds" tab. The sound device used for audio appears in a box in the upper portion of the screen. There should also be entries in the last three tabs. The last tab is the "Hardware" tab. It will list all the available audio and sound devices on the computer.

Step 3

Right-click on the "My Computer" icon, and select "Properties". Click on the third tab and then select the "Device Manager." The Device Manager shows all the hardware on theyr computer. It displays any devices it cannot identify under "Other" with a yellow question mark. These may be the sound card. If there is nothing listed under "Sound card" and nothing under "Other", it means they do not have a sound card in theyr computer.

So, after detecting the driver, they need to do the updating of the sound card driver if necessary.

In these steps, fist Look directly on theyr sound card manufacturer's Web site, Look for links to theyr sound card, theyr brand of sound card, or theyr brand of sound chip. Follow the instructions to download the file. Save the new driver on theyr computer's desktop.

The next step is installing the new driver; just remove the existing driver by finding it in the Device Manager as before. Right-click on it and select Remove. Then double-click on the icon for the downloaded file. Then restart the computer, they will get the newest sound card driver then.