I just upgraded from Vista to 7 today, and now have a sound problem. The speaker in the bottom right has a red X superimposed. Clicking it tells me that the audio device is disabled. However, if I look at my playback devices, my speakers are fine, and in the device menu, my SigmaTel driver is indeed enabled. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, but it’s still not working. Any ideas?
Get better drivers.
And make sure they’re the RIGHT ones, and the latest. Do some research.
Already done that, with no change.
Your sound card might be incompatible with 7 but it’s pretty rare…
Have you tried uninstalling the current sound drivers and installing the ones from your motherboard manufacturer? Just go to their web page and look for the drivers for your model. Just make sure you get the architecture right (32/64bit) and it should work.
And if your PC is pre-built just go to the OEM’s website and look for drivers for the model written on the box… You might have to download vista or XP versions because OEM’s suck at upgrading drivers.
You don’t understand. Unless your hardware is broken, it is a driver issue.
When I say get the right ones, I mean ones that work for your setup. If Sigmatel AC’97 drivers don’t work, try generic AC’97 drivers. If those don’t work, do some intensive googling AND get some software like Everest to tell you EXACTLY what specs / name etc your sound card is. Plenty of times I’ve come across people that ASSUME they know their sound card is a Realtek or whatever, complain the drivers don’t work, and it turns out they have an IDT sound card. I’ve even come across one idiot who had a SigmaTel sound card, but kept downloading their modem drivers or something.
Your reply tells me that you just downloaded the latest drivers you thought should work, they didn’t, and you gave up, saying to yourself “well, I tried the latest ones”.
It is a driver issue if your hardware is not broken. Keep trying drivers and their configuration. Try old ones. New ones. Ones for different but similar models. Ones for 7, ones for Vista, ones for XP. Ones for different but similar brands even. Try installing them with admin rights. Try compatibility modes. Turn off UAC. Also - you haven’t done something retarded like click “mute” on your speakers or anything, right?
Hey this happened to me too. About half of my games don’t play certain sounds correctly anymore, and I can’t download any drivers because none of them are compatible with Win7.
Very rare… for me, most drivers are not only compatible, but downloaded automatically by Win7 too. 
Luckily all of the Half-Life series game sounds still work for me. 
Upgraded? So does this mean you took the Upgrade path during installation or did you wipe the drive and start afresh?
This may seem a bit stupid, but the wonderous win7 gave me issues with my microphone. So try this, Control Panel>Sound>Speakers then right click in the central pane, and make sure “show disabled devices” and “show disconnected devices” are both active. Then make sure there’s not an extra set of speakers there, that aren’t activated.
That’s a very good point. I think he means if you wiped your drive and installed a fresh copy, then you currently have (or had) default Windows drivers from the CD, which may work, but not correctly if some of your hardware requires different drivers. If you upgraded without formatting your PC, then you should still have the same drivers as before, and they should* work. I might ask though, are you using normal 2-way Stereo speakers, or 5.1, 7.1 etc… That plays a good factor too. Mine are 5.1, and there is a control panel for my drivers that allows me to change the speaker configuration from 2.1, 5.1 ,7.1 and so on, you might want to see if you have one as well.
No, it was the upgrade path. And I tried showing disabled devices. Nothing.
I think the problem is that SigmaTel hasn’t really released any working drivers for 7, or at least Dell ain’t showing them. When I get back to my dorm today, I’ll try looking at some SigmaTel support forums or something.
Actually, I was asking because upgrades tend to cause more compatibility issues than clean installs, not less. If the installer determines that the drivers included on the CD aren’t compatible with your hardware, the OS will search online for the proper ones after installation. Even though Vista and 7 are similar, it doesn’t mean the drivers are interchangeable.
Oh, you have a dell.
Just buy a PCI sound card, you’ll be better off.