I have just bought a new laptop from Dell. They told me that it would have an Audigy soundcard in it, but I can find no evidence of this in the system. There are no programs, and no mention of the soundcard in the hardware configuration. There are also no extra ports for audio connections.

Also, the sound from the internal speakers is pretty unimpressive. I imagine that the soundcard would improve this. Am I right?

So can I be confident that they did not include the soundcard with my system, or am I not looking in the right place?

If it is a brand new computer from Dell then my guess is that it has a sound card and you're not looking in the right place ;)

What model number is it?

It's a Dell Inspiron 6400. I have looked in the hardware configuration (pressing F2 on startup) and in the audio section of the control panel, but can find no reference anywhere to this card.

Go into Device manager to check for your hardware configuration.

1.Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.
2.On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager.

Thanks NeedKarma

I have done as you say, and under "sound, video and game controllers" there is the following list:

Audio Codecs
Legacy Audio Drivers
Legacy Video Capture Devices
Media Control Devices
StigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
Video codecs


For all but the StigmaTel item, the manufacturer information says "(Standard system devices)"

I guess this means that there is no audigy soundcard in the notebook. Can you confirm that this is correct?

This sounded familiar to me and now I remember why:
http://www.digg.com/hardware/Did_DELL_Lie_See_for_yourself

You don't have an Audigy card, just a software upgrade. Plenty of pissed off people.