Speakers wont work?

Question

My speakers on my computer wont work. They do work when i listen to music on itunes and when i use windows media player. But it wont work with anything else. When i check control panel under sounds and audio devices it says there is no audio device. Also for some reason the sound icon on the bottom right of the screen isnt there anymore? Whats wrong?

Answer 1

Thats very odd.

You need to see if your sound card is disabled, or the windows audio driver is down. If either is the case, you shouldn't have sound out of anything.

Right click my computer - goto manage.

Under the device manager item, you should be able to see your Sound and Audio devices If anything is disabled, or has a yellow exclamation next to it, you need to enable it, or reinstall the drivers for it.

If these are fine - go up to the Services tab, and find the Windows Audio Service. Be sure this is set to Automatic, and restart or start it (right click on the service and go to properties to modify things)

All this is assuming you're running Windows XP or 2000.

Best of luck.

Answer 2

This is obviously an issue with your system, not your programs. There is a couple of troubleshooting steps you can take to look for this cause of this issue.

1. Go into your sounds properties as you did, via control panel, click on the Audio tab, then click on Advanced at the very top of the screen under "Default Device" then look on the Speakers tab and see what the arangement is for your setup. This is just to ensure that your setup is as closely matched as what you actually have hooked up. Then click the Performance tab and click Restore Defaults to ensure any mucking around hasn't caused any issue with the system.

2. Right Click on your speaker icon down in the notification area and select Speaker Settings. See if there is a setting which Syncronizes your particular speaker software with the Control Panel and make sure there is a check mark in the box which enables this feature.

To check for the actual presence of the icon in the notification area, right click on the Start button, select Properties, click on the Taskbar tab, and click Customize, then scroll through this list of current items and see if it is set to always show, show when active, or never show. If it is any but the first, click on that area and then select "always show". If it is not in the current items, look in the past items list, and select "always show". This may bring it back up to the notification area. Oddly enough, there isn't a method of removing any icons placed in the notification area permently, without doing surgery in the Registry, so often, clicking Always Show for a past item will pop it back up in the notification area for use, that is, IF, the item is still installed on your system.

3. Test your system sounds by clicking on the Sounds tab in Sounds and Audio Device Properties, by selecting an item in the list and clicking on the small arrow to the right of the box showing the name in the dialog box. You can't actually type anything in this box, you need to click and item and it shows up in this box. If the item does not make a sound there is one more place you can check to see if a setting has been disabled:

Again, in Sounds and Devices properties on the General tab, ensure that there is not a check mark in "Mute" under Device Volume. Click Advanced, and ensure none of the Mute boxes are checked in the displayed areas. Unless you know for sure you are not using one or more of the devices or software items.

While still in Sounds and Devices properties, click on the Sounds tab, click the drop down menu under Sound Sceme, and make sure "No Sounds" is not selected. Mine doesn't show any scheme unless I choose to save my current sound configuration, which occurs after a change is made to a single sound item in that long list at the bottom where you can check and/or change the sound configured to play when that item or event occurs in Windows or a Program. So, if no scheme is showing there, click and make sure all is good.

Now, if none of this works, I assume you may need to reinstall your sound card adapter. It is possible it was currupt, but I doubt it as other sounds are heard while using the computer. This does not point to a currupt sound card driver, but rather to a setting which has been disabled. As your Media Player and iTunes has sound, then it is most likely within your sound volume settings, somewhere one has been muted. This occured in my husbands system somehow once, plus his logon music failed to play for a time until he told me and I enabled it in the sounds list in Sounds and Devices Properties by clicking Logon, then browsing for a sound to play. This fixed it easily enough. So, please check the mute options on your overall volume settings dialog box.

If none of these things work I suggest you consider taking your system to a reputable repair shop. Try avoiding those large box stores and go with a smaller company as smaller companies gives much better service. In my opinon anyway.

Good luck and I hope you get this fixed soon. Have a nice day.

Answer 3

Try re installing the sound drivers that should help