"Sound card may be in use"

  • Thread starter Thread starter ashkaan57
  • Start date Start date
A

ashkaan57

Hi,
I seem to have lost the sound in my PC.
I went to Control Panel/Sound and tried to play one of Windows sounds
but I get:
"Windows cannot play the sound chimes.wav. Your sound card may be in
use"
Also, I cannot set the volume, it is greyed out and set to minimum
volume.
I have an integrated sound card. I have checked for muteness and other
usual suspects but to no avail. Any ideas is greatly appreciated.
 
What do you see in the device manager?

My computer->control panel->system->hardware->device manager

There should be various icons related to components of your computer.

Are there any yellow qestion marks, exclaimation marks, or red exes?

Is there an icon that looks like a speaker? If there isn't, check the
BIOS to make sure your integrated audio is enabled.

you may wish to uninstall your sound drivers, and re-install them.

A last possibility is that the onboard audio controller died, in which
case disable it in the BIOS, and put a card in.
 
What do you see in the device manager?

My computer->control panel->system->hardware->device manager

There should be various icons related to components of your computer.

Are there any yellow qestion marks, exclaimation marks, or red exes?

Is there an icon that looks like a speaker? If there isn't, check the
BIOS to make sure your integrated audio is enabled.

you may wish to uninstall your sound drivers, and re-install them.

A last possibility is that the onboard audio controller died, in which
case disable it in the BIOS, and put a card in.
Click to expand...

Hi Paul.
Thanks for the reply. Everything looks OK in the device manager,
nothing with a question mark in front of it. I have not checked the
BIOS yet. I did reinstall the driver and it did not help.
 
Hi Paul.
Thanks for the reply. Everything looks OK in the device manager,
nothing with a question mark in front of it. I have not checked the
BIOS yet. I did reinstall the driver and it did not help.
Click to expand...

Oh, and make sure the speakers still work.... you can test them with
any device that has that style plug. (ipod, portable cd player,
walkman)

I once had a monitor die right in the middle of a pretty ugly repair
job, I spent 2 hours thinking I'd just killed a (marginally) good
motherboard.....
 
Hi Paul.
Thanks for the reply. Everything looks OK in the device manager,
nothing with a question mark in front of it. I have not checked the
BIOS yet. I did reinstall the driver and it did not help.
Click to expand...

There are several tools you can use to determine if it's a hardware
failure.
One is to obtain a linux "live" cd and boot the machine with it.

One such is knoppix ( http://www.knoppix.org/ ) the page is in German,
but if you click on the US/UK flag icon, it'll change to English.

Knoppix is an operating system on a CD, it does not actually install
itself on your hard drive. In fact, it doesn't even require a hard
drive to be present. You can surf the web, burn CDS, and all that
stuff. Knoppix knows about MOST of the common audio drivers.

When it starts, you should hear "initaiting startup sequence"

Another way to tell is to do a clean reinstall of the OS and drivers
(reformat the hard drive). You might want to get a spare small hard
drive (6gb is more than enough) and disconnect your main one.

It's a pain in the butt, but at least you'll know.....


Also there is always the possiblily of a computer virus.
 
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