No sound on laptop - anyone help?

[chykensa]

Hi technophiles.
I have a crappy work laptop - Ergo Vista 631 - and the sound has died.
I tried in vain to reset the factory sound settings, but this blasted Realtek HD Audio Manager keeps getting in the way. So I uninstalled that, and tried again to get the MS XP Pro settings back - no joy. Thinking that the uninstall may have 'lost' some values somewhere along the way, I reinstalled the Realtek software, but no joy.
The little speaker symbol in the toolbar is there, it's not muted, and the volumes are all up on the Master Volume panel.
I don't want to tinker too much as it's not my laptop, but does anyone have any ideas how I can fix this please?

All answers gratefully received!

[Deleted]

Andy - Not sure whether it helps but shut down pc and restart it. I don't have the same pc but it works for me when I had the same problem.

If it doesn't work - I am sorry for wasting your time.

[enagee]

You could try going into device manager ...hi-llte the audio bit right click and scan for changes ..sometimes it clears the problem

[Steve (VapeStorm)]

Turn volume up Andy......

Well you did say all answers gratefully received.....

[chrisjw]

Shutting it down & re-booting has worked for me in the past...........



"Life...........is just a bowl of tricks!!!!!!"

[Deleted]

Get a mac!

[Chrissie]

Andy, if shutting it down & rebooting doesn't work, do you have any headphones you can plug into the laptop? If so & you get sound through the headphones, then it's your built in speakers that have gone.

[Ripshod]

Right click the speaker in your system tray, select 'Playback Devices' and make sure your speakers are set as the 'Default Device'. If not right click 'Speakers' and set them so.

[decoy]

download and install the sound drivers from the laptop makers web sight if none of the above work

[chykensa]

decoy- tried that last night and no joy there either! The speakers were working when I got this machine, but I adjusted something (can't remember what!), and must have buggered up the settings or something

[charliehorse]

chykensa
Did you try plugging in a set of headphones to see if its just the speakers.

Never used Vista (im assuming windows vista going on the laptop name) but this might (or might not) help

www.consumingexperience.com/2009/04/failed-to-play-test-tone-no-sound-on.html

Read through it and you might get some ideas ??

[thatguy]

Good call charliehorse . Try some external speakers or headphones to check if the issue is really the sound card or the laptop speakers. It eliminates another possibility.

If that fails, then uninstall your sound card drivers completely, and any related software. (You can keep things like cubase/cakewalk/audacity etc chykensa , I'm assuming from your background you'll have recording/editing/sequencing/midi type software installed)

Then try to reinstall the drivers. If you uninstall them first, it should hopefully delete any changes you have made to settings.

To make sure you have uninstalled the drivers completely, after getting rid of the software, go into your device manager then find the device, open it up, uninstall there if the option is available, then disable it. Restart windows, then back into device manager then enable it. This will probably launch an update driver box. Cancel it and go ahead and install your downloaded driver. Windows can be a bugger for assuming you want to install a cached or stock driver, this will get around that issue.

I hope.

[charliehorse]

Dec 3, 2014 0:54:02 GMT thatguy said:

Good call charliehorse . Try some external speakers or headphones to check if the issue is really the sound card or the laptop speakers. It eliminates another possibility.

Can't take the credit for that I'm afraid ..... it was Chrissie that suggested it.
I was really just asking whether chykensa had tried it yet and what the result was.

[chykensa]

Thanks charliehorse and thatguy- speakers don't work with headphones in either
I'll try the uninstall of all drivers when I get a spare hour (!) and see if by reinstalling everything I can fix the problem that way. I'll keep you posted!

[GunJack]

this often the full sound mixer rather than just the volume mixer settings - you should get the option if you right-click on the speaker icon...