no sound on dell laptop

pc10

Hope someone can help me.

I recently bought a 2nd hand Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop and can't get the sound to work on it.

Ive checked that the volume isnt on mute.

According to device manager the sound card is working.

I ran Dell Diagnostics and it scanned through stuff and then it asked it I could hear the sound - of course I couldn't - its then told me to ring Dell with some error code (can't recall what it was sorry!).

I would prefer NOT to have to ring Dell and pay for the phonecall so I wonder if anyone here has any ideas of what I could try.

I don't have any discs for the laptop but am I correct in thinking that i some other partition of the hard drive I could get all the files need to reinstall windows again and therefore don't need the actual discs?

gaming_guy

have you tried using headphones?

pc10

I Hadn't but now have and I can hear the sound through them - any ideas where to go from here?

Thanks

albertross_2

Dells usually have a keyboard combination (may be Fn + pgup/down), to change the volume, as well as software settings.

pc10

thanks, yes thats right but even if i do that and turn the volume right up i still hear no sound.

is there anywhere to sort of turn the inbuilt speakers on at all?

albertross_2

If it works on headphones, it's beginning to sound like the speakers are bust.. (or the lead going from the headphone port to speaker is loose) which would be unusual, but I can't think of another explanation for the symptoms you describe.

Is everything unmuted in the mixer settings?

pc10

Thanks - yes everything is unmuted.

The person I bought it from says there was sound on it when he sent it to me - I guess he may not be telling the truth though. The laptop is in perfect working order apart from this problem.

Is there anyway to work out if that what the problem is?


There is not even the slightest sound coming out of the speakers at all.

albertross_2

Is it out of warranty?

I have the feeling I'm missing something obvious.. but can't think of any other software settings to check.

Normally, when you put the headphones in, it cuts off the sound going from the audio jack to the speakers, so you could take it apart, and check that the leads/connections going from jack to speakers are ok, and soldered correctly. Take photos as you do it, if it is not obvious how to put it back together again.

It will look something like this..


Also, not sure how the speakers are attached to the motherboard on that model, if it is done by a push fit connector (see 2 in the picture), it may have come loose in transit.



http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1300/en/sm/speakers.htm#wp1084976

pc10

I might have a go at that another day!

I think it is out of warranty - its more than a year old.

Would it be worth trying to reinstall the whole operating system again? If so are all the files somewhere on the harddrive as I don't have the discs?

Thanks for your help.

zappahey

pc10 wrote:

Would it be worth trying to reinstall the whole operating system again? If so are all the files somewhere on the harddrive as I don't have the discs?

No, it's not worth doing that. If the headphone jack works then the OS is doing just what it should. I would say it's almost definitely bad speakers or a loose connection.

pc10

Thanks - I guess thats my only option then!

I'll give it a go.

Just for reference though - can someone tell me if I do need a disc to reinstall everything or is it somewhere on the harddrive already?