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How can I find out what sound card I have? We know the answer!

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To determine the sound device on Windows XP, it will be enough to use the standard features of the system. Therefore, if you are wondering: “How do I find out what kind of sound card I have?" Step by step instructions will help you. Turn on the computer, choose one of the methods and act according to the proposed plan.

Step by step

  1. You need to open the "Control Panel" and launch the "Device Manager". You can also access the "Device Manager" by right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon and following the tabs "Properties" – "Hardware" – "Device Manager".
  2. In the "Device Manager" from the proposed list, select the "Sound, video and game controllers" window, find the description of your sound card by right-clicking on the "Properties" tab. Information about the installed sound card will be in the first proposed line.

The answer is in the iron

For those who like to delve into the hardware, there is another way to determine the device model. We remove the cover of the system unit, carefully examine the motherboard and find the microcircuit responsible for the installed sound equipment.

If you have an external card, that is, it is not integrated into the motherboard, then carefully remove and look at its markings.

If the device is not detected?

What to do if through the “Device Manager” you received the answer “Unknown Device”, and warranty stickers prevent you from getting to the hardware?

In this case, in the context menu of the displayed "Unknown device", select "Properties", then go to the "Details" tab and select "Hardware ID" from the drop-down list. Usually the strings look like "VEN_11D4&DEV_989B&SUBSYS_10438311&REV_10034&21B9C98F&0&0001". This is your device instance ID. Copy it to a search engine and look for a driver for your sound card. It is advisable to download the driver from the official website of the manufacturer. If it was not possible to determine the model of your sound device in this way, you must contact the service or warranty center.

Auxiliary programs

You can also use auxiliary programs that are designed to obtain detailed information about the configuration of your computer. The most popular are: AIDA64 (analogous to EVEREST), SiSoft Sandra, PC Wizard, astra32, HWiNFO32. Let’s stop on AIDA64. The program interface is intuitive, just go to the multimedia tab "Audio PCI / PnP" and the answer to the question: "How to find out what kind of sound card I have on Windows XP" is found.

With the DirectX executable library installed, there is another way to identify the sound card model. To do this, just enter the command "dxdiag" in the "Run" window, after clicking the "Start" button. Next, information about the audio and video devices installed in the computer will be displayed.

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