Where has my sound gone?

Jet

My pc's sound has suddenly stopped working.

I'm running windows ME and having looked at system properties, I'm not sure if the sounds card is showing up - these are the devices listed under sound, video and game controllers;

Gameport joystick
mpu-401 compatible midi device
SoundMax integrated digital audio
Wave device for voice modem

are any of those sound cards and could that be the problem?

albertross_2

SoundMax integrated digital audio

Jet

OK, thanks.

Right I've run dxdiag and got the following results with the 3 sets of sound tabs;

DirectSound test results: Failure at step 19 (User verification of software): HRESULT = 0x00000000 (error code)

What does that mean?

albertross_2

Don't know..

Do you have a speaker icon in bottom right, have you checked the obvious things, connections, volume sliders, mute, made sure the speakers are ok etc..

Jet

Speakers are fine, connections and nothing is muted but there is no volume icon in the right hand side of the taskbar - I can't remember if there used to be.

albertross_2

That's usually a sign of missing or corrupt drivers or a fault, do you get a yellow question mark next to anything in control panel, system, device manage, or red crosses next to the sound drivers, if so, see if you can download and reinstall the sound drivers from the web

you could try a system restore to undo any recent changes.

Jet

It mentions a pci communication device that has a yellow question mark next to it. when I try to install drivers it can't find them on the pc and seeing as I don't know what a pci communication device is, I don't think I can find a driver for it.

albertross_2

modem or possibly network card.

Jet

albertross wrote: »

modem or possibly network card.

Well, at least that can't be the problem with the sound.

Mercenary

I've recently had the same problem but with my onboard soundcard.
I did all the obvious checks and tests, did a system restore, reinstalled drivers...but the big giveaway was that if I plugged some headphones direct into the (green-coloured - on mine) jack at the rear of my PC tower (where the speakers connect to the soundcard) there was still no sound when I 'played' a CD in the disc drive. You could try that one to see if yours is indeed dead .

Luckily my PC is still under 'on-site' warranty, so the engineer is calling later this week to do his magic .

Jet

Hmm, just tried that. Nothing.

So how much is new soundcard? No chance of getting mine under warranty - the computer is around 8 years old!

If the soundcard is dead, would the pc tower make a noise. I thought I had a fan problem but now I'm wondering if it's the soundcard or indeed if the fan has caused the soundcard problem.