My Laptop Will Not Play Sounds

[Sionnach Glic]

This is a problem that appeared a couple of hours ago. As the title suggests, my laptop won't play any sound. No music, no speach, no error noises, nothing. It was working fine one moment. Then when I went to watch something on Youtube it wouldn't make a sound. I've plugged in headphones and hooked it up to the TV, and it still won't make a sound. I've checked all the settings, and nothing is on mute. I've ramped the volume up to max and still nothing plays. I've gone through all the different settings windows for the speakers and not only does it still not make a noise, but it says that everything is working fine. When I try to use one of these windows to play a "test tone", it simply tells me "Failed to play test tone". When I try to play music on Windows Media Player, it simply tells me that it cannot play the music.

I've also noticed somethig interesting. I'll probably fail at explaining it, but maybe other Vista users will understand what I'm getting at. At the bottom-right hand corner of the screen is a little speaker symbol you can click on, which brings up a slider bar that allows you to adjust the volume. Normally when I adjust the volume, it plays a chime and a little grey bar will run the length of the slider to where the pointer that controls the volume is, presumably to give you some sort of visual confirmation that the volume has changed. But now that the sound's not working, when I adjust the volume that little grey bar doesn't appear. Might this have some significance?

At this point I've tried everything I can think of, and any help you guys can give me would be great. I've tried Microsoft's help page, but naturaly it's a load of useless crap. I tried the website of Realtek, the guys who apparently are responsible for the sound on this laptop, and again it's of of no help what so ever. I've gone through all the different settings, and it still doesn't work. Not only that, but it hasn't even bothered to fucking tell me why it won't fucking work. I'm tempted to see what happens if I do a system restore to yesterday, when it was still working, just to see if it'll jump back into life again. Whatever the problem is, it certainly seems to be with the software rather than with the hardware.

So, have you guys any ideas?

Oh, and there's also something solid stuck under the "N" key, which is also starting to annoy the hell out of me at this point, but I don't think you can help me with that.

[stitch626]

Sounds like corrupt audio drivers. have you tried looking up the audio driver for the laptop and reinstalling it?

[Tyyr]

That's what I'd do. Since your computer can't play the test tone it can't find your audio device and figure out how to talk to it. The driver is suspect #1.

[Sionnach Glic]

Regarding the driver, how do I go about re-installing it? Is it a piece of software, or an actual physical thing? Doing some quick Googling, I can find a bunch of downloads for RealTek audio drivers. Is installing one really just as simple as dowloading and clicking on install?

Yes, as you may have guessed already I'm rather clueless when it comes to computers.

[kostmayer]

Its pure software, and yeah, its a case of reinstalling and a reboot. Just got to make sure you've got the correct drivers.

[Sionnach Glic]

Excellent. This is something I might actually be able to do.

Okay, one last question before I try to get this thing working again. How exactly do I find out what driver I have? It doesn't seem to get any more specific than "Realtek High Definition Audio" and "Version 6.0.1.5386". That is to say, I can't figure out what driver I should actualy be looking for.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

If you feel unsure about doing it I can link in with a program I have as long as you install it, which is a pretty easy install and then I would uninstall the program and the connection would no longer work.

As for the thing stuck under the "N" key, just carefully pry the "N" key off the keyboard and then replace it after you get rid of the solid object.

[Sionnach Glic]

Object removed. It was tiny screw.

Hmm, should I be at all worried about the fact that there was a tiny screw rattling around inside my laptop? Ah, screw it.

[Captain Seafort]

[Sionnach Glic]

Oh, Christ, I just made a bad pun without even realising it.

[Sonic Glitch]

Object removed. It was tiny screw.

Hmm, should I be at all worried about the fact that there was a tiny screw rattling around inside my laptop? Ah, screw it.

Oh, Christ, I just made a bad pun without even realising it.

[Nickswitz]

Haha, how did you get a screw to get under your "N" key?

But did you get the sound working?

[Captain Seafort]

Oh, Christ, I just made a bad pun without even realising it.

And here's me thinking you did it deliberately.

[colmquinn]

Nah SG wouldn't be screw'N around like that

[Captain Seafort]

Second Irish Civil War commencing in 3...2...1...