Thirith on 5/9/2008 at 11:32
This week my soundcard stopped working pretty much from one moment to the next. The whole thing is rather mysterious to me: the system still recognises the card and it believes it is producing sound, but nothing comes out of the speakers. However, I don't think it's a problem with the speakers, since when I hook up my USB headphones I also don't get any sound. (I will try the hooking up a cheapo speaker directly to the soundcard just to make sure, though.)
Any ideas what I could try to make it work again? I've re-installed the drivers and I've taken the card out and put it back in, but that didn't work. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
bikerdude on 5/9/2008 at 12:14
There are know issues with the latest Xfi drivers, so try going back a version or two..
biker
nb. I have an Xfi xtreme music
Thirith on 5/9/2008 at 12:18
Thanks. However, it went offline before I installed the latest drivers, so I'm wondering whether the problem isn't somewhere else.
Some more info: my first thought was that the problem was with the speakers. When I unplugged the cable going into the soundcard, I didn't get the usual speaker clicks and rumbles that you get when you unplug/plug in the speaker cable. However, the speakers still make their rumbling interference sound when I switch off the light in the bathroom, which suggests that they still work. Okay, so it might be the cable going from the speakers to the soundcard - but then the USB headphones should work, shouldn't they? Which makes me think that the problem most likely is with the card itself.
Gnah...
The Brain on 5/9/2008 at 12:41
Correct me if I'm wrong, but USB headphones doesn't use already present sound card at all. They have their own intergrated sound processor. So they should work even your sound card wont.
Looks like that your motherboard is slowly dying away. See if you can get other working sound card and/or USB headphone, so you can test that your PCI-bus and/or USB-connectors are intact and working.
Thirith on 5/9/2008 at 12:59
Thanks for those suggestions. I do hope that it's not a problem with the mainboard, because otherwise I'm pretty much screwed...
Mingan on 5/9/2008 at 18:15
You could also check the sound settings in Windows. Once I played a game that, when you changed the volume, would change it in the sound settings, but would not reset them when quitting the game.
37637598 on 8/9/2008 at 04:36
Do you have an Ipod? you can plug your speakers into the headphone jack of the Ipod to see if they work still... Also try going to Start>>Control Panel>>Sounds and Audio Devices, then click the 'Audio' tab. There should be a 'Sound Playback' drop-down menu... Make sure it's set to Sound Blaster... If it is, try changing it to something else, such as Realtek or Windows Audio, or whatever your other choice is. If you change it, remember to make sure your speakers are plugged into the speaker port that's built onto your motherboard, rather than the one built into your Sound Blaster card... Click ok and test the sound. If it works now, then you may either have a bad Sound Blaster carwd, or it just needs to be tweaked somehow...
Let us know your result if you try this!
