h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The new PC that I lauded so much in my journal has a slight problem - I can't get any sound out of it. It's not something obvious like level controls (at least I hope it's not), and the OS is definitely recognising the card - in fact, I've just spent an entertaining half hour swapping all my cards over to make sure.

Preferably in words of two syllables or less, can anyone think what else could be the problem?

B

Its bust

Nice one, DD.

OK - start with the obvious.

Are the speakers plugged in and turned on?

Have you put the jacks for the speakers in the right plug?

Have you downloaded the latest drivers from the manufacturer's website?

Does your old card work?

If the answer to all the above questions is 'yes' then I can tell you what the problem is.

It's bust.

That's one of the things I love about h2g2 - no shortage of smartarses Unfortunately I'm not enough of a yet to help out with the problem

I don't have an old card, because I bought the system from a guy who builds his own - however I saw him demo it perfectly in his house.

I'm on the verge of demolishing my Dad's computer to get at his card, but I suspect that you're all right - it is probably busty.

B

Sorry, that's 'bust', not 'busty'. It doesn't have enormous breasts either, sadly.

B

if you have changed the position of the card in the machine so it is in a different slot, then it probably is suffering from the "windows problem".

this occurs because microsoft seem to have indexed their card recognition system to the slot, rather than the card, so you move the card, it deletes the driver, and then has no idea what driver to use when it finds it in another slot.

all very silly and microsoftish.

No-no-no - the drivers are OK, I'm just about technically competent enough to check for that.

B

What OS? You say the drivers are OK, but are there any conflicts? Not sure of your level here, but if you go Start->Programs->accessories->systems tools->system infomation and then choose Hardware Resources and conflicts/sharing that'll tell you if owt is sharing ./ conflicting (if the system tools have been installed). I've had similar problems with cards, sometimes you just need to remove the drivers, take the card out, boot so the ECSD thingy resets and windows unloads everything. Then restart and put the card in again so it re-recognises it, probably on a different IRQ.

Have you a joystick on the machine as well? I know some of these can interfere with sound cards.

And anyway, you still got the PC Speaker haven't you? It'll still go 'beep' when playing tetris!

Windows 98 - I've checked for conflicts and there are none. No joystick.

I think the card may, in fact, be knackered.

B

Try the speakers out on a walkman or something to make sure they're OK. Have we had that one?

Yep! The speakers are OK.

Face it, my card's f**ked

B

Sounds likely! I had PCI 64value Creative card that one day just gave up the ghost. No reason I could see, just did it.Assuming you've tried all the slots, guess it's time for you to go to the next computer fair near you.

Actually there's a dirt cheap components shop just round the corner, so I can pick one up tomorrow morning

B

You have made sure the speakers are plugged into the right socket and that windows knows to use that device for output?

Yes, I've run over the obvious - there's appears to be some sort of blockage between the source of the sound (software/audio CD/whatever), and the output controls, because I'm getting nothing on all my VDUs.

B

Not _acutally_ VDUs, but you know what I mean - the output level bars.

B

Check the multimedia options in the control panel - make sure your soundcard is the prefered playback device and it's not set to either none or something else.