Mute PC - Any ideas why?

[Reeves]

Okay, this will sound like one of those "where's your common sense?" questions at first, but for some reason my PC isn't playing any sound at all.

I've tried my speakers and I've tried earphones. The speakers are on, the sound is not on mute, nor is any other media player...and yes I have plugged the speakers and earphones into the correct socket.

Any ideas what's causing this?

[Dr Lobster*]

make sure you've checked all the obvious things (it looks like you have) like a set of headphones in the output socket (unplug everything else audio related and stick a plain pair of headphones in the socket), and that all the mixer levels are turned up in the windows volume control.

if that doesn't work, give this a try:

go to control panel, look for sound and audio devices (you may need to switch to classic view) and open the applet.

click the audio tab, you'll see this:



some pcs have a number of different output devices, for example on my old pc the modem was listed here, along with the onboard audio card. you'll need to make sure you've got the correct output device selected.

go through all available devices in the sound playback dropdown and see if that solves the problem.

[Nick Harvey]

This might help, or might be a million miles away from the answer.

My sound card has a habit of not starting up properly about once a week.

I go into Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager and disable it, then re-enable it.

All is then well again for about another week.

[James H]

That 'seventh day of rest' coming back to haunt you again Nick?

[marksi]

The crap on-board sound on my PC used to randomly not play audio on the left channel. To fix this I had to re-install the drivers about once a fortnight. I got bored with that and bought a Creative soundcard which works perfectly.

[Reeves]

Just tried Mr. Harveys and Mr. Lobsters ideas but they were unsuccessful. I've tried re-installing my drivers as well and that did bugger all.

Could it be caused by spyware I've deleted that has kind of taken sound properties with it?

[Ant]

I occasionally get the same problem. A system restart usually fixes it.

If it doesn't, I usually change the Audio Output to another option (eg. 'Chipmunk' or 'Karaoke') and put it back to what it was before.

[B.E. El-Zebub]

I hear there's a great computer repair firm up in Manchester somewhere. Sure they'd be delighted to help.

[cdd]

It's a bit of a lamo's way out... but have you considered trying System Restore?

[Lorns]

Here's what not to do.....

Don't get any bright ideas about doing a full system management repair restore thingy or reinstall windows to set the pootah back to how it was when it left the factory. I did that once and deleted all my files in the process. It didn't fix the problem i had either.

You live and learn!

[cdd]

Here's what not to do.....

Don't get any bright ideas about doing a full system management repair restore thingy or reinstall windows to set the pootah back to how it was when it left the factory. I did that once and deleted all my files in the process. It didn't fix the problem i had either.

You live and learn!

Yes well that's just stupid isn't it.