My friends laptop loses the audio drivers whenever she uses my network connection. On her own network there have been no problems. You cannot just go through windows vista to repair it, You must flash the bios. This has happened since she bought it a few months ago. It only happens when on my network. This is driving us mad. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening??

Forgot to add the laptop is a compaq cq60

Which network connection?

You do not say whether the network connection at your place is cable (ethernet) or wireless, likewise at your friend's place. Assuming they are not the same, and given you say that the PC's BIOS must be reloaded to fix the issue, it sounds like a hardware fault which is causing the BIOS data to be damaged in the CMOS chip when one of the network connections is used, most likely the Ethernet. This is possible, although very unlikely, as some motherboards use one Analog - Digitial convertor chip for audio, modem and network. However, I can think of no mechanism which would cause the BIOS data in CMOS to be corrupted in this way. I can see how the data may be changed but that change would be reversible using the CMOS settings process. As the notebook is under warranty, if you can can confirm that a System Restore in Vista will not fix it, I suggest you go back to the retailer and have them test out the hardware.

Same Problem

I have the same issue with my daughter's laptop computer. When I add external speakers everything is OK until we turn it off and back on again. It will revert to the laptop speaker and we have to make the laptop "see" the external speakers again.