Sound Problems

[suzreid]

I have just bought a new PC for myself. It has Win2000Pro as the OS.

My problem is that I cannot play .wav files. Music CDs play fine and I can record on to the PC with the microphone but I can't hear the resulting .wav files.

Any ideas on how I can fix this? I don't know the manufacturer of the card.

Thanks
Suz

 

[jrbarnett]

Is the Wave Balance set to be muted? Double click the speaker icon in the system tray and ensure that there is no tick in the "Wave Balance" mute box, and that the volume is set to be greater than zero.

To find out the make and model of your card, right click my computer, choose properties, go to the Hardware tab and click Device Manager. Look under the Sound, Video and Game controllers list.

John

 

[suzreid]

I'll check all this and get back to you.

Suz

 

[suzreid]

I've checked the PC settings.

None of the volume settings are set to Mute (or very low)and the speakers are working.

It seems to be an AC-97 card that is installed.

So you need any more information?

Suz

 

[jrbarnett]

When you say you can hear music CD's, is it through the speakers on the sound card or the audio jack on the CD/DVD drive?

An AC-97 is a cheapo chip on the board. Fine for business audio, less so if you are into games or sound in a big way.

John

 

[suzreid]

I hear the CD through the speakers plugged in to the card not the CD player.

Suz

 

[drdebit]

I think you have to have a sound cable from the motherboard or sound card to the cd player to hear sound through the cd player. Do you have one of those hooked up?

 

[jrbarnett]

Right.
If the speakers are connected to the sound card it means that there is a CD audio connector between the drive and sound card. It also means the speakers are connected to the speaker connector (not the microphone or line in connectors that I have seen elsewhere) and that there is power to the speakers and their volume is not set to zero.

You can check out and see if the card is installed properly in device manager right click My computer -> properties -> hardware -> device manager and look under the Sound video and Game controllers to see if the drivers have been disabled or not, or if there are problems with the sound drivers.

I have also found that on my card (SB 1024 Live!) it is possible to knobble the soundcard from the driver. Not sure about yours. Right click on AC-97 audio and choose properties. On the properties tab open audio devices and choose properties of AC-97 and ensure that "use the audio features of this device" is selected.

I know that CD playing often bypasses the internal drivers, which is why this may work and everything else fail.

Try this and get back to me.

John

 

[suzreid]

I managed to sort the problem. I used a different driver from the one that is installed by default and that solved the problems.

Thanks for the help
Suz