help please, our computer is suddenly silent.

[lorryw]

Our computer suddenly became silent shortly before Christmas and being complete computer novices we dont know what to do.

I have been on the windows technical site and still cant find any answers. When the computer first comes on we get the message , Signature files missing or corrupted. Would this have anything to do with it?

I can imagine loads of you sitting at your computers, looking at the ceiling and muttering. I would be grateful for any easy, not too technical suggestions please. We really miss not being able to listen to old radio shows and listen to movie trailers.

Many thanks.

[lil_me]

On your task bar at the bottom there should be a little picture of whats meant to be a speaker, right click on that and it will say open volume control, click that and make sure someone hasn't muted it or changed volume level.

[phasmid]

You need to find out if the sound card is working correctly. I will assume you are on XP.

 

Before anything else click on the speaker Icon in the system tray (at the bottom of the screen) and open the controls then check the settings to make sure it hasn't been accidently muted or turned right down. If that desn't work try the next step.

 

Click start > Control panel > System > click on the 'Hardware tab' then select Select 'Device manager' and a list wil appear. On the list you should see a series of boxes on the left hand side with either a '+' or a '-'sign in them. Look for the box next to 'Sound, video controllers'. Click the + sign and see if you have a yelow triangle with a '!' in it. If you do run the trouble shooter diagnostic.

 

HTH

[baddad]

Our computer suddenly became silent shortly before Christmas and being complete computer novices we dont know what to do.

I have been on the windows technical site and still cant find any answers. When the computer first comes on we get the message , Signature files missing or corrupted. Would this have anything to do with it?

I can imagine loads of you sitting at your computers, looking at the ceiling and muttering. I would be grateful for any easy, not too technical suggestions please. We really miss not being able to listen to old radio shows and listen to movie trailers.

Many thanks.

 

 

Could be, but have you done the really obvious things like checking the connections and stuff? Next thing would be to open up your mixer (hopefully you'll have a little speaker icon somewhere on your task bar) - a right click will open the general volume slider, and you may find one of the kids has just turned this right down (or if it's got a red diagonal line through the speaker icon it means it's muted - this can sometimes happen accidentally if there's a keyboard shortcut). if it's not that, then rght clicking should bring up the sound control panel and you can have a play with the various sliders and radio buttons in there... Again, you might find that output has been muted for wav/direct sound...

Do you get ANY sound (CD's etc?) or is it completely dead?

 

If you don't find an audio icon on your task bar you'll have to look through your programmes folder in the start menu (most popular souncard brand is 'creative' so if you see a programme with that name that'll probably be it), and when you open that you can 'tick' the radio button that says 'place icon on task bar' for easier access in future...

If you can't get sound back by trying all the options in the audio set up you may have corrupted your driver files (which could be the message you're getting on start up) If you come to the conclusion that IS the problem, you'll need to reinstall them from their installation disc....

 

Oh quick way to check if it's a driver problem (up to win 98 - haven't got XP yet but may be roguhly the same)... click start>settings>control panel, then look in system and expand device manager to look for 'sound, video and game controllers'. From there you can confirm if drivers are installed. If there's a problem, there will usually be a yellow exclamation mark !

 

That should keep you busy!! and best of luck sorting it...

 

BD

[lorryw]

Thank you all so much,

Ive even been around all the bookshops taking furtive notes from computer manuals, all completely useless and incomprehensible (long word for a Saturday evening!) Thanks to your help we have now decided to reinstall. Not sure how to do it though and will it cause any probs if we press the wrong options?

Thanks again

Lorainexxxx

[phasmid]

If you are going to reinstall I'd check the drivers first. Look in control panel like befor and find out the make of your sound card. Then the type/model. Armed with that seek out the manufacturers website and search for the latest driver. Download and install that and see what happens.

 

I assume you HAVE checked the wires are in the right holes already...haven't you? I mean pulled the pc out and REALLY looked! Of course the speakers are turned on as well I assume.

Edited February 11, 2006 by phasmid

[hev]

i am a complete novice on computers and steven couldnt listen to his music as there was no sound,i called the pc helpline and arranged for engineer to come out,i had one more look before he came and it wasent connected to the wall i had already checked but not thorough enough,cancelled the engineer pretty quick,probably something obvious if you anything like me,good luck i know how annoying it is

[phasmid]

Have you got it fixed yet?

[lorryw]

Hi Phasmid,

This is so embarrassing, Ive looked on the control thingy and we have no sound card installed at all. To be perfectly honest I havent a clue what a sound card actually is (appart from the blindingly obvious) or how to install it.

We are on Windows XP and I will have another crack at sorting it after dinner.

Thanks for asking.

Loranexxx

[phasmid]

if you had sound before you MUST have a sound card. Hang on...go to control panel as before but this time look for the 'speaker symbol' that says 'Sounds and audio devices' double left click it. This will open the 'properties' box. Click the 'sounds' tab. You should then have a 'pulldown menu' box on the screen in front of you. Click that and select 'windows default' then try playing a sound either a cd or via the net.

[microsoft_admin]

did you have sound before xmas ? if yes then there are 2 possibilities

 

1 your onboard sound card (its not a card its a set of 3 chips on the mother board) is ither faulty or the drivers for it are not working

 

2 if any one in your family knows how then your sound card may have been removed

 

if no then there are 3 possibilities

 

1 buy a sound card (i recomend Mercury 6 Channel PCI S/Card ?8.99 ?7.65 Ex VAT from ez computers as it will give you sound if you looking for a top quallity gamming sound card then go for Sound Blaster� X-Fi Elite Pro ?249.99 INC VAT from this site)

 

2 buy a external sound card like the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX (the latest one out so expensive)

 

3 pm me to discuss options