Hello,

If someone could please assist, I am trying to determine whether or not i have hardware failure or have just hit a snag with the vista OS detecting my device.

My sister had an hp dv6646us which she dropped something onto the keyboard (right on the enter key) and it stopped functioning. She ran out and bought a new laptop and gave me her old one to try and fix up. I work in ITS and have been dealing with hardware and software for some years now but laptop hardware issues are not one of my best subjects.

I successfully replaced the keyboard in the laptop following the HP service manual provided online. To do so i carefully disconnected the two ribbon cables that run the the power panel and reconnected them as i finished my install. The keyboard, touchpad, and power button all work fine and the quicklaunch button strip is all lit up.

I then formatted the hard drive and installed Windows Vista ultimate on the machine. The install process went smoothly and i was able to install drivers from the hp website for all of the hardware except for the conexant modem/HDAUDIO device, both I assume are built directly into the motherboard. The modem does not concern me but the audio is a problem I would really like to resolve. The audio seemed to work fine after the incident but I (moronically) didn't test the audio in her OS before i wiped it.

The volume icon has a red x and says "No Audio Output Device is installed" and there is nothing listed in Device Manager for Sound, Game controllers, Etc. Under System devices vista has installed the High Definition Audio controller automatically (regardless of whether i tell it to auto install or not). When i try to install the conexant audio drivers i get the error message "cannot find MEDIA device."

I would try a manual install at this point but there is no device listed for me to "update." I have found that if i uninstall the High definition audio controller from the system devices, then put the computer to sleep and resume it, I get a listing for High Definition Audio Device under the Sounds, Game Controllers, Etc. section in device manager. windows then automatically installs the high definition audio device and controller. I then try to manually search and install the driver for that device and receive a Code 10: Device cannot be started error.

I have been scouring forums for a week now searching for solutions to this problem. I have tried installing MS UAA and rebooting and it still doesn't recognize the device. After install there is no UAA controller/bus listed in Device manager. I apologize for the lengthy post but i am trying to give as much background as i can.

As it stands this is a fully functional, 1 year-old laptop without any sound. I would really love to get this thing into shape and have a decent laptop to work on (I work in IT and my provided laptop suuuuucks). I can provide screenshots/other info if necessary.

Any help with this issue is greatly appreciated.

Thank You

some more info:
HP dv6646us
AMD turion 64 X2 TL-58 1.9GHz
2.00 Gb ddr2 667
Vista Ultimate SP2 x86
nvidia Geforce Go 7150m
nvidia nForce 630m chipset

Configuration: Windows Vista
Firefox 3.0.10