windows xp sound broke

[nite_monkey]

My computer won't let me change audio recording sources. When ever I select anything, it just unselects it and selects the stereo mix input. I don't want to select just stereo, because I have to turn it down really low, otherwise when I record anything it sounds like crap, but my mic is too quiet going through the stereo input because it is turned down too low. That isn't too confusing is it? Let me make a screen shot and see if that makes more sense.
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That is what happens when I try to select anything other than the stereo input.

[Nighted]

Try running in safe mode and see if it still does that. Looks like something else is overriding your sound console.

[nite_monkey]

Yeah thats what I was thinking, but I haven't found out what keeps changing it back yet, I'm gonna look and see if I can, and then I'll go into safe mode and see what that does.

edit:ok, so I booted into safe mode, but there was no soundcard in safe mode. I don't know if there was something I was missing, I never use safe mode. And I couldn't find any program or anything running that would be doing it either, so I will have to do more research, unless someone has had this problem before and knows what to do to fix it.

[Nighted]

Post a screen shot of your task manager or send it to me.

[Eóin]

It could be a service running either. Msconfig has a nice feature in it's services tab where you can hide the MS ones which would be unlikely to be causing this problem anyway. A screenshot of that list would be helpful too.

A useful thing to note though is that msconfig isn't the best for managing services, a better bet if you want to fiddle with them yourself is after having gotten the list of non-ms ones fire up Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Services and tweak them there. Or get Sysinternals Autoruns.

[nite_monkey]

ok, free screenshots for everyone

there's you a free task manager screenshot


and there's you a free services screenshot

[nite_monkey]

I'm downloading drivers for my sound card, just to see if that will do something. I doubt it will though, because I updated the sound drivers not to long ago and it didn't cause this problem, but it's still worth a try I guess.

edit: Ok, so the sound didn't break, my computer broke the sound drivers. I just got done installing the sound driver update, and now the problem is fixed.
Thanks for your help anyways guys.

[justice]

realtek has its own volume manager called Soundman, it should be in your system tray. It may override it. Ah its fixed.