Hands on: Fix your PC's sound

These days our PCs are used as much for entertainment as they are for other tasks, so one of the most annoying problems that can rear its head is the loss of audio.

Suddenly all your MP3s refuse to play, there’s no sound in videos and games go silent. Audio issues can be difficult to track down because there are so many variables that can lie at the heart of the problem.

It’s usually hard to tell whether your soundcard has just given up the ghost, the software drivers are at fault or there’s simply some issue with your connections.

However, armed with a bit of knowledge about how your computer and soundcard interact, you can usually isolate the problem and find a solution. So this month, we’re going to look at some ways to troubleshoot and solve any sound issues you have with your computer.

When you suddenly lose sound on your PC, the first thing you should do is check the obvious stuff. It may sound silly, but even the most technically savvy folk can get caught out by overlooking the trivial stuff.
You should start by checking all your cables. Make sure that the power supply for your speakers hasn’t been dislodged from its socket, and that the audio cable running between your soundcard and speakers hasn’t accidentally become disconnected.

If you find you get sound in most of your programs, but there are one or two that don’t produce audio, the problem may lie with how they are set up to address your card. Some audio applications allow you to select the device that’s used to play back or record sound. This is common in audio-editing applications, video-editing software and music sequencers.

To solve this, you’ll need to go into the software’s Preferences or Options menu and look for a section that deals with the audio hardware or the audio input and output. Somewhere in this section there will be a dropdown box that lets you choose which device is taking care of the audio duties. Simply select your soundcard as the chosen device and the software should start to behave itself again.

Digging deeper
If you have no joy with this, the next place to look is in the Windows Volume Control applet. You can open this by clicking on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Entertainment and then Volume Control. You’ll be presented with a row of volume control sliders. First, check that the main volume control is not turned down and that the mute box isn’t ticked, then check that each of the soundcard inputs that you are using (CD player, line-in, microphone and so on) have also got their volume turned up to at least three quarters of the way and that the mute box on each one isn’t ticked.

If you’re having problems recording from a source, click on the Option menu, select Properties, tick the Recording button and click OK to see the recording volume controls for your card. You need to make sure the input you want to record from has its Select box ticked and that its volume slider isn’t turned down.

The standard Windows Volume Control applet is usually linked to your own soundcard’s volume applet, if it comes with one. However, as your own soundcard’s applet may offer control over special features of the card, it’s worth checking the volume, mute and that other similar settings are also correctly configured.
If this doesn’t solve your problem, you need to head over to the main Windows Control Panel.

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