BleepingComputer.com: No sound- Help!!

Dell Dimension 4700 Pentium 4
Windows XP Home

So a while back I decided to remove a bunch of programs I thought I didnt use and might be slowing my computer down
I think I went a little delete happy
It didnt help anyway lol
(turns out Paltalk was the culprit and now it is long gone)

So after I did my mass delete, I couldnt play music or anything else anymore
In fact, it said I didnt even have a sound device anymore
I managed to get my sound device back after a lot of reintalling from disks
But still no sound
Nothing is muted anywhere, in fact when I do my speaker test (Creative 5.1 speakers) it works- the voice names all my speakers (front left, front right, etc.)
If I have my volume turned on & up and shut computer down I also here that loud noise
So I'm assuming my sound card is working based on that
yet I have no other sounds anywhere
Not in my media player
Not on websites like news video's on yahoo.com and not on facebook
Literally nowhere

I am very puzzled. Any help would be majorly appreciated

Check the Creative software installed...it may have muted the volumes.

Louis

Thanks for quick reply
Nothing appears to be muted
Especially since I can hear the speaker test
If anything was muted, would I be able to?

Does "my media player? mean the Windows Media Player? It is not muted in the volume controls at the bottom? If Windows Media Player, do you know the version?


The other things you list that have no sound (news videos, Yahoo!, Facebook) are all accessed from web browsers and in order for the browser to play them, the browser usually requires plugins (like a Flash plugin) - little added programs for special purposes. The browser or the plugin may have it's own sound options, be missing or need to be reinstalled. Maybe they got removed in your housekeeping.

I would like to understand first the browser problem, but you need to say which browser - Internet Explorer (7 or 8), Firefox, etc. If you are using Firefox as your default browser, then you probably still have IE installed, so do you have the same problem with both? Which one? Are you just using IE?

Do you see the video okay, but just hear no sound?

All this was okay before your housekeeping?

If you computer is running slow, it probably has nothing to do with the number of programs you have installed, but the number of programs that are running at the same time. You could have hundreds installed as long as you don't run them all at once! So, it is not too surprising that removing them did not help your performance problem, but that is a different issue.

Tell me your browser, then we can work on getting just one thing working and maybe fix all the browser related problems at once.

Something to check:

Start/Control Panel.

Open Sound and Audio Devices.

Volume tab, click on Properties in Device Volume.

Play control should open.

Click on Options/Properties. Place a checkmark by everything, click OK.

Back to Options/Advanced Controls.

If under any of the categories, you see Advanced click on that, if a box opens that has
OTHER CONTROLS/1 Digital Output Only* check if it's unchecked. (if you see Advanced in the panel Volume Control, you won't need to check any other advanced settings. With SB, this is the one that is key to sound you hear)
If it's unchecked, check it.

Open up a player, add a music file, do you now have sound?

*it may have another number. If it does, check or uncheck it.

This post has been edited by Queen-Evie: 31 May 2009 - 10:39 PM

Queen-Evie
Thanks- well I tried all that and still nothing
99% sure I did everything you said



joseibarra- Yes Windows Media Player 11
and no nothing is muted in it

I use both IE and Firefox depending on what I am doing
EI 8 and Firefox 3.0.5
I have no sound in either browser

I see everything play whether in my media player or in IE or Firefox
I simply hear no sound anywhere except when I do my speaker test- oh the irony

The computer started working fine once I removed everything to do with paltalk
That was the culprit for making my computer freeze even without using the program

But still no sound

This post has been edited by paige3663: 01 June 2009 - 09:02 PM

I do not have your Creative sound environment, so can't test everything, but here is what I think/know.

Since you have no sound in IE, Firefox or Media Player, your problem is somewhere in your Creative setup/settings. It is unlikely that all three would not work unless there was a single problem effecting them all.

Since your Windows sounds work (that loud noise) when Windows shuts down is another clue. Your Windows sounds work but any media playing software does not. The mechanism for the two is different.

You can goto Start, Settings, Control Panel, Sounds and Audio Devices and on the Sounds tab, find your Exit Windows sound and click the > to play it. Works fine, huh? Probably all the others work too.

I have a simple built in audio SoundMAX setup from my motherboard. Not a big audio/video person...

I can go into my SoundMAX panel (first time I've seen it) and mute the sound in there and my Windows sounds will still play just fine from Control Panel (which includes that loud noise), but I have no longer have sound in Media Player or Firefox when viewing a video. Muting the sound in my SoundMAX turns it off for all applications that might play media but not for Windows sounds. Follow?

So your problem, I suspect, is somewhere in your Creative setup and since I don't have that, I can't help you look. Something is muted somewhere, or not turned up.

Since you had to reinstall your Creative stuff, another place to look is right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware, Device Manager. Expand Sound, video and game controllers. Any !s, ?s or Xs indicate a problem - perhaps an old driver. If there are any errors there, those need to be fixed - first.

Another possibility is while you are in Device Manager looking at your sound stuff, you can try to update the driver. You can always roll it back if things get worse. Could be you have to point it to wherever your latest Creative drivers download stuff is. You would have to check the Properties, Driver tab for your device and then the Creative WWW site to see if what you have is the latest. You are now a reinstallation expert anyway, right?

So I am pretty sure we know where your problem is - your job... find it!

This post has been edited by joseibarra: 02 June 2009 - 09:53 AM

Quote

But the ONLY place I can purposely play sounds is in my Creative speakers settings test- the voice clearly says front left, front right, rear right etc

Quote

Nope none of them play

Since you had to reinstall your Creative stuff, another place to look is right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware, Device Manager. Expand Sound, video and game controllers. Any !s, ?s or Xs indicate a problem - perhaps an old driver. If there are any errors there, those need to be fixed - first.

Quote

Nothing has a !- ? or anything. I tried to update everything and everything was already up to date

:-(

I guess I'm going to have no choice, but to reformat

When you go into the control panel and open "sounds and audio devices". Click on the "sounds" tab. What "Sound Scheme" do you have? Is it on default or no sounds?

techextreme, on Jun 16 2009, 03:14 PM, said:

I went and it said no sound
So I tried Windows default but still nothing

EDIT- OMG OMG I have sound
I sat here playing with different things
changing different settings
and bam I can hear everything
In my media player and online
Thanks so much everyone for all your suggestions

This post has been edited by paige3663: 16 June 2009 - 05:25 PM