Audio goes silent

The audio output of a motherboard
has suddenly stopped. That is,
no program that produces audio to
the little green female connector in
the back -- games, Windows Media Player,
whatever -- can be heard. And I've
determined that the speakers are okay.
The motherboard is a few years old,
but young enough to be running XP.
I don't know the exact circumstances
of how it failed, except that the
person using the box claims not to
have been messing around with anything
in particular. Simply rebooting didn't
help. Is this likely to be an
electronics failure? Or should I call
in an XP genius?

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org

On May 18, 4:34 am, mail...@cpacker.org wrote:
> The audio output of a motherboard
> has suddenly stopped. That is,
> no program that produces audio to
> the little green female connector in
> the back -- games, Windows Media Player,
> whatever -- can be heard. And I've
> determined that the speakers are okay.
> The motherboard is a few years old,
> but young enough to be running XP.
> I don't know the exact circumstances
> of how it failed, except that the
> person using the box claims not to
> have been messing around with anything
> in particular. Simply rebooting didn't
> help. Is this likely to be an
> electronics failure? Or should I call
> in an XP genius?
>
> --
> Charles Packerhttp://cpacker.org/whatnews
> mailboxATcpacker.org

Your symptoms can go either way, but fortunately it's easy enough to
fix in either case.

If it's an XP problem, then most likely it's a driver issue.
Check the device manager for any question marks, Xes or exclamation
marks.

The second possibility is that the audio is disabled in the BIOS, as
bioses vary, I cannot give you an exact path, but in general the bios
is entered by pressing delete, f1, f2, f10, or the spacebar during the
reboot cycle.

The last possibility is that the onboard sound is indeed toast, in
which case, disable the onboard sound in the bios, and get a pci
soundcard.

mailbox@cpacker.org wrote:
> The audio output of a motherboard
> has suddenly stopped. That is,
> no program that produces audio to
> the little green female connector in
> the back -- games, Windows Media Player,
> whatever -- can be heard. And I've
> determined that the speakers are okay.
> The motherboard is a few years old,
> but young enough to be running XP.
> I don't know the exact circumstances
> of how it failed, except that the
> person using the box claims not to
> have been messing around with anything
> in particular. Simply rebooting didn't
> help. Is this likely to be an
> electronics failure? Or should I call
> in an XP genius?
>
> --
> Charles Packer
> http://cpacker.org/whatnews
> mailboxATcpacker.org
>
When checking loss of sound first go into control panel to see if the
sound is supposed to be working or if it is greyed out. It if is greyed
out you have to reinstall the drivers. If it is supposed to be working
check it by listening to it with ear phones. Also check the volume
control to make sure there is no check mark in mute which can happen
sometimes even though you didn't do it. Also the volume control should
show you green dashes of the volume going up if the sound is supposed to
be working. If everything is supposed to be working according to control
panel and volume control then try cleaning the terminal with a dust
cleaner or some contact cleaning spray can that you buy at places like
Radio Shack.

mailbox@cpacker.org wrote:
> The audio output of a motherboard
> has suddenly stopped. That is,
> no program that produces audio to
> the little green female connector in
> the back -- games, Windows Media Player,
> whatever -- can be heard. And I've
> determined that the speakers are okay.
> The motherboard is a few years old,
> but young enough to be running XP.
> I don't know the exact circumstances
> of how it failed, except that the
> person using the box claims not to
> have been messing around with anything
> in particular. Simply rebooting didn't
> help. Is this likely to be an
> electronics failure? Or should I call
> in an XP genius?
>
> --
> Charles Packer
> http://cpacker.org/whatnews
> mailboxATcpacker.org
>
Check to see if the audio is greyed out in the control panel which would
indicate you have lost your drivers. If the audio looks like it is
supposed to be working there then it is some sort of physical problem.
Try listening with earphones and try playing a midi file to see if the
midi playback is also mute. Check the volume settings to see if they
have been turned down too low or are muted. If it is a physical problem
try cleaning the output contacts with an electronic spray on cleaner
like a dust cleaner.