Help Wanted - Installed some new hardware & lost all system sound

[krautdog]

Well, I could use some advice. I just added a hard drive, some ram, and replaced a cdrw with a dvdrw and I have lost all system sound. I have checked all the obvious things - drivers, connections, etc. I feel it has to be a hardware issue, and am convinced it has to do with the dvdrw. That is also what my IT guys at work think. They said sometimes unplugging the speakers and plugging them into the headphone jack can fix a glitch and reset the sound, but my dvdrw(NEC ND-3520A) doesn't even have a headphone jack. Well I tried that with my other drive, another cdrw, just in case but to no avail. They thought maybe unplugging the sound wire from the back of the dvdrw would somehow help but it didn't. It can't be a master/slave or jumper problem because I know I did that right and the pc is recognizing all the drives and they all work properly - apart from the sound of course.

I have gotten great expert advice here before so I thought I would post. Any suggestions?

My system: Athlon XP2500, Asus A7N8X-X w/NVIDIA nForce2 chipset, WD80gb & 120gb HD's, 1.5 gb RAM, NEC dvdrw, Khypermedia cdrw, ATI Radeon 9600XT.

 

[zephead]

try using headphones with your soundcard, hooking them up where you would usually connect your speakers. reply whether or not your 'phones worked.

 

[krautdog]

Tried it and still nothing. Sorry for the late reply...Mike

 

[howard_hopkinso]

You could check in device manager for any yellow exclamation or question marks.

Also check your volume control that nothing is muted (I know, but it does happen)

Have you tried reinstalling the sound drivers?

Regards Howard :grinthumb

 

[krautdog]

Holy crap I feel kind of silly...Howard you were right. I had to open up volume properties and change it to display every kind of volume control. Whereas normally there are 4 or 5 categories displayed, I never knew that there are a few more buried that aren't normally displayed. Sure enough, "aux", "video", and "wave" had somehow been muted. I would never expect a pc to do something like that. Thanks very much for the help, I really appreciate it...Mike