Creative soundcard & CD-ROM problem

[chantona]

Hi, I have a creative soundcard in my system at it was working fine with a microphone as well. Suddenly I get nothing out of it but when I checked the sound troubleshooter in XP I have no new device conflicts, all drivers are present and it even says that the device is working properly. Now, when I try to play audio CDs in my CD-ROM the system freezes and crashes. Before everything worked ok but what is puzzling is that all the drivers are in place and the system thinks it's all ok. Wouldn't the system know if the soundcard has died? Before I open the box to rip it out I was wondering if there's some little detail I've missed...

 

[jrbarnett]

"No new device conflicts" sounds like there was one before, but it worked fine.
Have you recently installed any new hardware or updated any drivers on the system?

I would also check that the soundcard is not muted (double click the speaker icon in the system tray) just in case.

John

 

[chantona]

Hi, sorry that was badly worded - i meant no device conflicts whereas there were none before...have checked that nothing is muted. I tried to do a system restore to the last time i remember the sound working and that didn't work either. No new devices or drivers have been added; the only thing is that i used a registry editor (hijackthis) and adaware to remove some tracking spyware, though wouldn't a system restore back to before i might have removed something i shouldn't have, have rectified the problem if this was the cause? My cd-rom is acting very strangely though...the other day it failed to detect a cd-rom for a while and there's a lot of hard drive activity if i try to read anything from it, slowing the system and crashing it on occasion. I checked the device manager for problems but all seems in place.

 

[kiddpete]

Definitely sounds like the cd-rom has a problem. I don't think a malfunction in the sound card would cause the PC to crash. You might try cleaning the cd-rom, or just replace it. CD-roms are really cheap these days.

No sound when you use the mike? Is the mike turned on and enabled for playback in the volume control? You don't have anything plugged in to an earphone connection do you? Are the speakers plugged in to the sound card and turned on? Can Windows make any sounds? Did you check line out with a set of earphones to see if there is sound?

 

[chantona]

Thanks guys, the CD-ROM's definitely had it. Everything was enabled under sound devices - checked the line out with earphones and it's not working so something on the soundcard has frazzled.