BleepingComputer.com: Sound... then no sound.... what the hey?

I have a sony vaio VGN-CR220E with windows Vista. Recently for whatever reason, my sound doesnt work (sometimes). What I mean by sometimes is, the first sound the computer makes when you turn it on (when windows vista icon pops up)... that sound works. However, I do not have sound with movies, music, etc. I checked all of the things you should check and dont find anything obviously wrong (volume is not on mute, driver is there and current, etc). It also wont play sound on other formats not just windows media (i.e. youtube, myspace, etc).

Also, I did try to redownload the driver (as recomended by the Sony website), however when I attempted to install the new driver it told me it could only work with Windows Vista ?!?! But I have windows vista .... so I'm lost on where to turn next.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your time

BTW: I'm new, so I aplogise if this is not the right section to post this topic in.

hello kristy & welcome

when it stopped working had you installed anything (updates,program)?

try right click on you speaker icon. (next to clock) choose play back devices. make sure speakers are set to default. (little green check mark)

go to device manager (start > control panel > device manager) & make sure you have no yellow or red !! (click on the + in the sound,video and game controllers)

good luck

theres always system restore. if its turned on

Hi Kenny,
I tried all of that and still no luck ::sigh::
The weird thing is that it did it for a little while & I re-intalled the sound drivers & then it worked for like a day... but now, nothing

I got the computer from my stepmother who didnt like it any more b/c she "hated" vista. So she gave it to me. I thought I may have deleted the sound drivers by accident when I was cleaning things out which is why i reinstalled them.

But I asked her and she had never had any kind of problems with it as far as sound quality. And when I first got it the sound worked wonderfully, but not now?!?!

If you can think of anything else for me to try please let me know.

Thanks and have a great day!

Sound card or onboard sound? Please give make and model of sound card if it's a sound card. If it's a Creative sound card then never mind. Creative disabled their sound cards so they won't work right in Vista.

If it's onboard sound, is it Realtek? Did you get the drivers from Realtek or Sony? Is the Realtek Icon showing?

It is a realtek, but i downloaded the driver from sony (was that a bad idea?). But now when i go to control panel --> sound, it says that it is working fine. Then when I go to properties for the sound, it says that the sound driver is fine. However, I do not see a realtek icon anywhere... where should it be?'

Also, when i go into the properties of the "realtek thingy" (wonderful technical term ) and click on "update driver" a screen pops up and it searches for updates, but then comes back saying that the driver does not need to be updated.

I also "tested" the speakers with the windows wizard when I went in and checked the properties of the sound, and it said it was working fine as well. (maybe it's lying to me, LOL )

Oh' and i just noticed tonight, headphones dont work either... go figure

I'm lost.... im usually pretty good with computers (at least know my way around better than most) but this has got me stumpted...


Thanks again !

I had a similar problem with Realtek once after updating. The icon wasn't there and no sound. Go to Start> Control Panel. See if Realtek is there. Click the realtek tile there and go through the config stuff again. I've found you always have to reconfig realtek after updating the drivers, it's a necessary PITA lol.

If you have already looked in Start> Control Panel for the icon, then I would suggest trying to instal the driver again and see what happens. Pay particular attention when doing so to see if it asks you to install the Realtek Audio Manager. Make sure you click yes.

I am unfamiliar with the realtek thingy that asks you to check for drivers as mine doesn't have that. However, different MoBo manufacturers use different features from realtek. If nothing else has worked, go to the REALTEK Homepage. Kind of to the right, you will see something called 'quick links, see if yours is there" If you have ALC889, it's to the left. Follow the links until you get to the drivers and download them from there and install them.

DeathStalker, on Jul 2 2009, 01:18 PM, said:

I quoted the above in case you hadn't read it yet lol and just went to the last post. I just found a couple of "fixits" on the MS page. This one is supposed to diagnose your sound in Vista and this one is for general hardware including sound.