Audacity Forum

I've used audacity for a bit before and got quite used to it. I want to record samples off of websites, such as youtube and so on. This usually works really easily on any other computer, but it won't work on my laptop when I try to record. When I press record it says "error opening sound device." I don't have a soundcard or anything, it's just what's built in to the laptop. (sound still comes out of my laptop). any ideas of what i could do?

I have the same problem

I'm running Vista Ultimate, with a Realtek AC'97 audio driver, and the most updated audio driver avaiable on net already installed and without problem! (audacity apart)

The chipset is an integrate Intel 82801AA Ac '97 on a mother board gigabyte

Hi, I was just having this problem, and I've gotten around it.
First, check in preferences to make sure you are recording in stereo.

Look at your input device. You want this to indicate that it is recording what you hear, rec playback, something like that. You'll come back to this later.
Now go into control panel>sound>recording tab. There should be a list of input devices, i.e. "internal mic"

Select something that looks like it will record your soundcard. it will be "what u hear", "rec. playback", or something similar. Click Set Default, then Apply. Remember how to get here so that you can set it back later!

Close Audacity, then open it up again. Go into Preferences. Select as Input device what you just set as default in Control Panel. Hit apply, ok, whatever it is to confirm.

see if it works now...

<<<Select something that looks like it will record your soundcard. it will be "what u hear", "rec. playback", or something similar.>>>

It might. Some of the current laptops are being made without this setting. This is distressing for people who have been using it for five years on an older computer.

There is a wiki that addresses this.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... e_computer

Also