i gought a 2nd hand dell dimension 4550 after my old pc went bang. i decided to reboot it to get rid of all his folders etc. however, after rebooting it my ethernet broadband nor my soundcard worked. (both worked before reboot). i put a new ethernet card in and it works ok, but still no sound. i dont really wanna buy a new card...

why are they not working?

it says cannot find hardware when i try and play music.

 

You probably need the correct drivers, do a search on Dells pages for info on the PC or you will probably find it on Google and download the correct soundcardriver and ethernetdriver. It might help you.

 

cheers, any more ideas?

 

Yep, sounds like driver issue if you reinstalled the system, either install them from the dell cd-roms if available or visit www.dell.com and search for the drivers for your machine