sound not working

May 21, 2005 7:19 AM

I can't get the sound to work on my computer anymore.

No OS sounds, no iTunes, nothing. I know the speakers work. I've tried both with the PCI soundblaster card in, and with it out (using the onboard sound). Nothing. I've completely reformatted the HD and reinstalled the OS. Nothing. I installed the latest updates, including SP2. Nothing. All relevant volumes in Control Panel are turned up. Sound is not muted. Nothing. Gotta be a hardware, problem, right? It seems odd that my onboard sound and my soundcard would both stop working at the same time.

posted by luser to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Have you tried a different set of speakers? I know you said the speakers work, but have you tried headphones or another pair?

Alternatively, download a copy of Ubuntu or Knoppix, boot off the CD, and try to see if you get sound from Linux.
posted by Jairus at 9:56 AM on May 21, 2005

It's unlikely that both your soundcard and your internal sound would fail at roughly the same time, so I think you can scratch them off the list of potential suspects.

Your speakers could be blown, as Jairus mentions. Have you installed any other cards recently? It could potentially be a hardware conflict. In order for this to be the case, your internal and external sound card would both have to use the same IRQs and DMAs. It's a longshot.

Of course, it could be something as simple as a faulty cable going to the speakers.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:49 AM on May 21, 2005

The speakers definitely work. I unplugged the jack from the PC, plugged it into the headphone jack of my portable CD player, sound is fine. Plugged it back into the PC, no sound.

Just as an update, I wondered if there were some sound drivers unique to this hardware, so I reformatted again and restored using the recovery disks that came with the computer, leaving the SB card out, and plugged speakers into the onboard sound. Nothing.

I'll try the knoppix disk. This is a real headscratcher.
posted by luser at 12:03 PM on May 21, 2005

this is a long shot, but it's happened to me at least once... check to see if any of your audio/media players (e.g. WMP, WINAMP, ITUNES, etc) has a mute toggle switched on... in my case, i once spent a good 20 minutes trying to run down the reason i had no audio thru my system only to find that if my media center 2004 program was set to mute the whole system got set to mute, despite the fact that not one of my other players showed the mute toggle engaged... check em all, see if that works. hope so.
posted by RockyChrysler at 12:07 PM on May 21, 2005

and plugged speakers into the onboard sound. Nothing.

I always try and address the issues non-destructively before getting out the OS installation CDs. Have you gone into the BIOS configuration and made sure the onboard sound is turned on? If it's on and it doesn't work, try turning it off and using your soundcard.

How did you find out it wasn't working? That is, what (if anything) led up to it not working? Was it fine and dandy yesterday, and it's not working today?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:55 PM on May 21, 2005

luser, I wasn't asking if you tried your speakers elsewhere, I asked if you tried a different pair of speakers. It's possible, however unlikely, that THOSE PARTICULAR speakers aren't working with your PC.

...but give Knoppix a try (with other speakers too!) and let us know what happens.
posted by Jairus at 5:15 PM on May 21, 2005

See if there is an external volume control on your cd/dvd drive (it's usally right below/above the tray), this had me going a week after I bought a new laptop.
posted by Mick at 6:20 PM on May 22, 2005