Game Tries to start in Silent mode, then crashes on startup

The Game Launcher Works, and the Minecraft 1.6.2 Program comes up, then the launcher says ERROR MESSAGE: could not locate openAL Library. Starting up soundsystem... Switching to no sound (silent mode). and that is it. minecraft freezes after the 'Mojang' Screen and will not respond within a minute. the only way to close it is with task manager. i have also tried deleting the 'Bin' folder and making minecraft re-download it, and have installed another copy of the launcher, but I have had no success. I would be grateful if you could either solve this issue or point me in the right direction to fix this.