Sound will not work - Urgent, please help

[namita_ruhela25]

I have a 4 year old gateway MX3558, and have had to have it refurbished many times due to hardware failures, etc. For a long time, touchwood, it has been working fine, except that random things have started failing now. At one point, one day I turned it on and it had no windows explorer. I got it off another pc and moved it into my system! Now I'm trying to empty the computer out to make it faster and allow for basic functionality, ie checking emails, surfing, and word processing (no gaming, etc). I've done that so far, but now another issue has come up: The sound isn't working! I havent faced any issues with the internal speakers to-date, and the drivers are installed as well.
The messages I get are the following:
Start Menu>All programs>Accessories>Entertainment>Volume Mixer:
"There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to control panel, click printers and other hardware and then click add hardware. This program will now close."
Device Manager>Services and Applications>Services>Windows Audio (startup type = automatic)>right click>properties:
"Configuration Manager: The Plug and Play service or another required device is not available"
Press OK>Another window pops up (windows audio properties):
Device status: stopped.
"Could not start the windows audio device on local computer. Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start"

This is all I've tried so far. I'm not very much into computers, but I like to try to figure things out and can follow instructions! So anyone out there who can help me, please be generous with your advice..

Below is some information about my system:
Windows XP, Home Edition, version 2002, SP3
1.46 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD
Intel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology with Intel® Pentium® M Processor 735
(2 MB L2 Cache | 1.70 GHz | 400 MHz FSB)

Prompt guidance would be appreciated!

--Namita

PS: The last time i had it fixed at a computer store, my perfectly fine integrated network adapter stopped working too. Any fixes out there? I'm sure the guys must have tried to install the intel drivers and everything, but in vain. I'm now using an external network card adapter in my PC Card slot. I would love if my internal thing would start working again though.
Intel® PRO/Wireless LAN 802.11g
I don't know which other information you may require, so please visit this site to know more about the network card included in my system (2 are listed, but I don't know how to find out exactly which one without opening the computer).: http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/.../5861cl2.shtml

[Maxforu]

Several times the Error "There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to control panel, click printers and other hardware and then click add hardware. This program will now close." comes when you don't have the proper drivers for the sound card or your sound device is not working properly. I would suggest you to match the sound drivers properly with your Motherboard, or you can do this by connecting to an Internet. The drivers that you installed seems to be wrong or corrupted, so uninstalling and reinstalling that driver will isolate your error. Even then if problem persist, that means your sound device is not working properly and you will have to repair that device.

[Killen]

Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start. This error is generated when you attempt to start the Print Spooler service. To solve this problem, you will have to fix the dependency information for the Spooler service. Follow the steps :

1. Click on Start button, then click on Run.
2. Type
CMD /K SC CONFIG SPOOLER DEPEND= RPCSS

Also you can do this in other Method :

1. Click on Start button, then click on Run.
2. Type regedit.exe in the Run command.
3. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ Spooler
4. Now double-click the DependOnService value, situated in right pane.
5. Delete the existing data and type RPCSS.
6. Close Regedit.exe

Doing this will definitely solve the Error 1068.

[deoWo]

If nothing is working for you then the last option is to format your operating system. Several times the issues of sound drivers gets fixed when you format the operating system. After formatting be sure that you are installing the correct driver for the sound. I think SoundMax audio driver is the driver that you are looking for. Make sure that you are installing the correct driver. Even then if you are not able to hear the sound than you will have to send it to Service Center because the device might have damaged internally.

[namita_ruhela25]

@ Maxforu: I tried to install the soundcard drivers again, got them from the manufacturer's website. When I restarted the computer, sound still didn't work. I then went to control panel..clicked on 'Add Hardware'. The wizard does not seem to work either!! Any ideas on how I could get this wizard to function again?
@ deoWo: Yeah...I bet that would solve my problem, but is there something I could do to fix my sound problem before I resort to that final and more time-consuming resolution?

Things seem to be failing in this machine one after the other:'(

Any ideas on how I could get the "Add Hardware" wizard to come up again?

PS: I really appreciate all the replies I'm getting!