Tim's Tech Tips

This post made, in response to the following question:

Ok so i did a system restore because my pc was pretty fed up. now i have multiple problems, so im starting with speakers. it seems they are plugged in and on, volume is up, but for some reason i have no sound. help please.

This isn’t a very in-depth explanation, but it also isn’t a very in-depth problem; however, it is a very common one, so I’m going to address it. There are about 60 zillion causes for not being able to hear anything even though your speaker volume is all the way up (and your system’s master volume is all the way up), but we’re going to address the most common one here.

For some reason, and god help me if I can figure out why, Windows tends to allow other programs to turn down the “Wave” volume in your volume settings, then shut down without restoring it! The problem, most of the time, is that some program has turned down your Wave volume setting, and you have to turn them back up.

The solution to this is simple:

Start menu->
Control panel->
Sounds and audio devices->
”Audio” tab->
”Volume” button (in the “Sound Playback” section)-X

Now, name sure none of these are muted (except maybe “line in”) and make sure the wave slider is all the way up, and so is the master volume slider. Also make sure the balance sliders are in the center.

If that doesn’t work, then in this particular case, since the person who asked the question said they recently did a system restore, I would assume that either the driver CD for their PCI/etc sound card, or their motherboard sound controller hasn’t been installed. Look around in “Sounds and audio devices” and see if the name of your sound card is listed there, as the preferred device for playback.

One more thing: To make sure the system is recognizing your sound card properly, hold the windows key, and hit “pause|break” (next to scroll lock). This will bring up your system properties. Click on the hardware tab, then select “device manager”. Once you’re in device manager, look for anything with an exclamation over it, or a yellow question mark. If you see anything like that, write down the name and put it in the comments. I’ll help you out. (This applies for anyone having a similar problem)