no sound

mrelephant_2

A couple of days ago i installed 'Spybot search and scan' and carried out a scan and fix on my windows xp, since then i have lost the sound. I tried to do a recovery of the scan but without realising it i think i must have delteed the recovery history.

Ive tried numerous fix problems suggested by the 'ComputerHope' website without any success. I'm no pc wizard and have run out of ideas.
Can anyone advise what i should do, i've tried downloading and scanning with various so called free scan systems but when you register you find out they're nit free at all.
Does anyone know a tool that is geniunely free and will clean my system?

superrug_2

Can you not just download the driver/software for your graphic card ?

mrelephant_2

without sounding ignor abit or thick.....how do i download and install driver/software.....like i said before i'm a bit of a novice with pc's.

superrug_2

No probs ill try and talk you through it, firstly are we 100% that its a software issue, speakers are turned on , plug in the back of pc hasnt come out and the windows sound isnt turned off (check by double clicking the speaker icon at the bottom right of your screen) youd be surprised sometimes its the simplest things.

If not if you gimmee your PC make and model, normally on the front, ill have a look where to download the drivers for you

JasX

Also worth noting ALL volume controls are independant so any one of them turned down or muted will kill your sound even if all the others are turned right up.

Places to look:
1-physical knobs/buttons on your computer
2-windows main volume control
3-if your sound driver/device has its own audio software/panel/deck look in that software
4-the program you're trying to hear sound from

Control panel -> sounds menu is a good place to look to check you're playing sound out via the correct device

Control panel -> system -> device manager to check you've not got any yellow 'unknown devices' that could be your sound card/device missing a driver and/or to go find your sound device and uninstall/reinstall the driver for it (after taking careful note of what device+driver you had in the first place)

do you have any idea if you have a separate sound card or is your sound built into your motherboard (in which case what can you tell us about your PC/sound specs?)