Gateway Laptop loses audio

[JWorld]

Hi, everyone
My friend has this Pentium 4 Gateway laptop with Windows XP Professional installed. One day she booted up her laptop and found that it wouldn't produce any audio any more.

She has tried reinstalling the windows, but it won't work.
We suspect that it is a hardware problem.

The question how to comfirm that it is really a hardware problem? Is it possible to change this component? (by non-experts?

Thanks

 

[wolluf]

You'd be better off in forum602 (this one's for hard drive problems).

Has she checked in device manager to see if the audio component appears correctly there - no ? or ! by any components - or red crosses? (system properties, hardware tab). Looked in event log to see if any clues? (run eventvwr.msc).

Its not a simple external switch turned off? (laptops often have switches to enable/diable hardware components).

If it is defunct, then you need a specialist laptop repairer (and it will probably be expensive - the sound card will be integrated into the machine).

 

[wahnula]

There are USB and PCMCIA sound cards for cheap...but I would like you to try something. If your laptop has Real Player installed, uninstall it and test. My sister's laptop was diagnosed & repaired from 1400 miles away with this procedure.