This device cannot start (Code 10)
Ever had this error on one of your devices in Device Manager? Well only recently I got this error, it took a while to work out from researching but here’s how I resolved the error.
Scenario
My new ATI Radeon 4850 graphics card arrived in the mail, as soon as I get home from work I start replacing my old 3870. After turning the PC back on after installing the 4850 everything goes great, get into Windows Vista and install the latest drivers for the graphics card… and here’s where the trouble starts.
For some reason i’ve lost my sound after installing the graphics card, on inspection of the Device Manager I find my SoundBlaster X-Fi has an issue, and upon checking the properties of the driver find it has the error “This device cannot start (Code 10)”.
No matter how many re-installations of both graphics card and sound card I cannot get it to work, however the onboard sound does work after re-enabling it (never had it enabled obviously due to having a sound card).
Solution
While this did work for me, it may or may not work for you with other devices but it’s always worth a shot. Now after researching i’ve found that this error can be caused by Windows not receiving the correct Vendor ID or Device ID from the card, this can be due to a faulty card or the card needing a simple reseat.
So first try reseating the card in question, if you’re not experienced with working on the inside of your PC you may want to get an experienced friend (be careful here as some friends may think they know what they’re doing but in the end cause more trouble) or more recommended get a reputable PC repair shop to fix your problem. If you’re set on doing this yourself and don’t have any experience doing so then please use a guide such as this one, not following a guide could mean damaging the card in question.
If after reseating the card the error is still there then all is not lost as there is another way to fix this and also happens to be the way I fixed my problem. This also involves removing and reseating the card. First shut down your computer and remove all cables (including power), open up your case and remove the card in question (see guide above for a detailed explanation on how to remove/reseat an expansion card). Now you can leave the case open if you wish as we’ll need to put the card back in, connect all the cables and turn the PC on. When Windows is loaded uninstall all software/drivers (mainly drivers) relating to the card, this can be done in most cases by going to the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) and then finding the software/driver in the list and removing it. If it’s not in the list that’s ok, you can also remove the driver easily by using a program such as Driver Sweeper (this program only does sound and video drivers however), or you could also try reinstalling the card into the PC (after turning it off, etc) and then go to Device Manager and remove the driver from there and then shut down the PC again and remove the card.
So basically you want to remove the driver for the card, remove the card, and make sure you turn the PC on and boot into Windows once without the card/drivers. After you’ve done this turn off the PC and re-install the card into the PC (follow the guide above). When Windows has loaded this time, re-install the drivers/software for the card and if all is well it should work.
If this has not worked then it is possible the card is faulty, however if like me the issue only happened after installing another piece of hardware then it’s more than likely a conflict that’s still occurring and this would be different to fix on a case by case basis.
But what about onboard devices? Well this could be tricky, but one way to simulate removing the card would be to disable it in the BIOS, depending on your motherboard’s BIOS this may or may not be possible, sound cards are almost always able to be disabled on motherboards however.
Hopefully this did fix your problem as I know, for me at least, it was quite a frustrating issue.
What caused it?
In this situation I can’t be 100% sure, but obviously it was caused by the graphics card. Why? Well the 4000 series ATI Radeon cards have an onboard sound card for dealing with the HDMI audio. Due to this Windows has been messed up with how it was meant to deal with my sound card, as I noticed it would initially detect it as a VGA Device when reinstalling. So by removing the card and drivers (effectively getting Windows to forget the sound card) and reinstalling it I was able to get Windows to once again detect the card as a Multimedia Audio Device.
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Sounds like you have an onboard sound card, in that case you’ll need to make sure that the sound card is set to enabled instead of auto or disabled in the BIOS. Depending on your motherboards BIOS it could be called a number of things, but look for something like onboard AC97, onboard audio, etc.
With the ATI 4000 series cards, they will disable your onboard audio if the onboard audio is set to auto, setting to enabled should allow you to get your sound back.
That is the problem I’m having. I also don’t see the volume control at the bottom right of the screen. I’m running Windows XP. VIA AC97 uadio controller. I get no sound no matter what trick I try. I do NOT know which card is the sound card so I can reseat it. I wish I could find a picture somewhere that broke the guts of the computer down into groups so person that is trying to learn can identify these things for the next time. I have a person working on it from Microsoft. he has been corresponding with me now for a few days trying to alleviate this problem. The system was rebuilt years ago and it was just recently hooked up. I have several downloads to go before it becomes up to date. It also has a bad habit of crashing unexpectedly and showing my desktop. I’m thinking that has something to do with updates. I may be wrong there. Any input would help.