No Sound on laptop

[talltony]

My wife's Acer laptop has decided not to play sounds any more.It won't play system sounds or CD/DVD sound.We haven't installed any new software or altered any settings,she was using it with the sound muted and now it won't turn back on.I've run through the XP troubleshooter but with no success, any suggestion please?

Tony

 

[Fanum]

There are several places that sound can get muted on a PC....

check the icon in the sys tray (bottom right hand corner, right click on the speaker icon and check all the properties)

Then check in Start>Control Panel>System>Sounds and audio devices and check through all of the tabs there to make sure nothing's been accidentally turned off.

Then also check in Windows Media player......

Do you have a TV card or Webcam installed?

Check in their progs as well.....they can override other settings sometimes.

After that, unplug any USB devices, external hard drives etc etc and reboot.....from time to time, something can go wrong on boot up and other devices can blank out the resources used by a sound chip......

Finaly (and this should have been done first ) you have checked the keyboard to make sure that there's no key combination that turns off the speakers physically (as opposed to by software) ??

Oo...Skype? Check in there if installed, that can turn things off too.

After that, we may need to know what laptop and what sound chip it has in it to take it any further

Oh, you don't run Norton do you??

 

[talltony]

Thanks Fanum, - I've checked sounds and audio devices properties,Windows media player sound is on,keyboard shortcut is on,no TV card or webcam,removed USB devices and rebooted,No Skype and definitely NO Norton.
It's an Acer Travelmate 2413LM and a Realtek AC97 audio(is that the chip?)

Tony

 

[Fanum]

That's a very common and standard sound chip...it tends to be on mid end desktops and lots of laptops and it's fairly decent as they go.....

I've had probs with one before.......try downloading and re-installing the drivers from HERE then re-boot and I reckon it'll sort itself out

 

[talltony]

I've installed the drivers and I thought that had got it - played the Windows 'jingle' on shut down but alas not on startup and still won't play sound on anything except Pinball!?

Tony

 

[YosemitePaul]

Try the FN and F8 keys simultaneously. On an Acer the combination of the two switch the sound on and off.

Paul

 

[talltony]

Try the FN and F8 keys simultaneously. On an Acer the combination of the two switch the sound on and off.

Paul

Already tried that but thanks for the suggestion.As a matter of interest(or not!) the speaker is not showing as muted,there's just no sound

Tony