Sound doesn't work

[viper275]

A little while ago my hard drive was about to crash, so I got a new one and everything is working fine, except for sound. The speakers turn on, but they don't play any music. They aren't on mute, they're turned on and plugged in, I've installed the drivers for the sound card, and I tried the Windows XP troubleshooting. Any ideas?

 

[CruddyLeper]

Are you sure the soundcard/USB speakers is selected as a playback device? A friend bought some USB speakers and had to manually change his selection. Buried somewhere in audio options.

First, right click Start>Properties, select Classic view.

Then Start>Settings>Control Panel. Look for an icon that hints at sound related activities.

I wish I could help further but I'm currently not in XP.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Sound and Audio Device Properties is the one you want. Have a look at Speaker and Volume settings too, as well as playback device.

Then check your speakers haven't blown by plugging some headphones into the lime green sound output socket.

 

[viper275]

My sound card is the default for the recording and playback, but Creative SoundFont Synth is the default for MIDI playback, and the only other choice on that is Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth.

Don't have headphones (or anything else that I could plug in there) around at the moment, so I can't really test your other suggestion.

 

[CruddyLeper]

... sounds like you're doing everything right. I'd set a CD playing and wiggling the lead, see if the connector is damaged. Mine takes a little adjust when I first plug in - I tend to fiddle with my PCs guts quite a lot.

As for headphones, ANY will do. Mini jobs for a Walkman/MP3 player, anything. Just to see if there really is sound coming out of the socket or not.

Oh yeah, you could try your speakers on a different sound source - perhaps the CD drives have a suitable output? Sometimes missing from branded PCs though.