Sound card fried?

[Odesseiron]

I encountered a problem last night when I got home. I had no sound coming out of my speakers. They were working fine in the morning, but when I got home, not. I thought it was them initially, as they have a tendancy to go in and out from time to time. I then proceeded to test the speakers on a laptop and they were fine. I opened up my pc, cleaned everything out, and tried a different port and all, no such luck. Sound like a shot sound card? I know I can get a decent one for about 30-50 bucks, and plan to on my lunch hour.

[Cephius]

Does your motherboard have onboard sound? Try that to make sure its not an OS issue before you spend money on a new card

[Shuemue]

Could easily be windows

[Odesseiron]

Does your motherboard have onboard sound? Try that to make sure its not an OS issue before you spend money on a new card

Not that I'm aware of, what would I go about doing to check this out? I don't know too much on the hardware side of things. My dad is also Head of his IT dept, and has been doing it for 20 years, and he's pretty much right all the time when it comes to PC stuff. He said the sound card is probably trashed, but I'll take any other ideas to avoid spending money.

[Isiolia]

What sort of card do you have?

My X-Fi, for some reason, will often glitch on restart and output garbled sound until the audio mode is switched. Not a big deal to me, since I rarely restart and it only takes a few seconds to fix...but it could be something similar for you.

I would second the notion to look and see if you have onboard sound, and to try that if you do. Just look and see if your computer has speaker/mic/etc jacks on the motherboard too, or if they're just on the card. In that case, you may need to go into the BIOS to enable it, and install the correct drivers.
Or just ask your dad, if he's familiar with your machine.


It does sound like it's the card though.

[Odesseiron]

Mine is an X-Fi, yeah. i pretty much leave my PC on 24/7 though and rarely restart it. All the speaker/mic/etc jacks are on the card itself. I might just pick up a cheap-ish sound card on my lunch hour today for around 30 bucks. I'll mess around with my PC more when I get home and if I get it to work tomorrow I'll just return it. It's not but a 5 minute walk so it isn't out of the way.

[Isiolia]

Have you tried changing the audio mode?

[Jaffar]

Instead of starting my own thread, thought I'd post my question in here- I have a sound blaster audigy (can't remember exact model, at work atm, but was top of the line a few years ago)- now I have constant crackling noises when using either my headset or speakers. Any insight would be appreciated.

[Odesseiron]

It ended up being my Card after all. I tried everything that was suggested, and tried to change the sound mode and all. Popped in the new one and everything worked fine. Then popped the old one in a test machine we had laying in the closet (I forgot about it) and it didn't work on there either.

[Azalee]

Instead of starting my own thread, thought I'd post my question in here- I have a sound blaster audigy (can't remember exact model, at work atm, but was top of the line a few years ago)- now I have constant crackling noises when using either my headset or speakers. Any insight would be appreciated.

My SBA card was doing the same thing, and I thought it was because my puppy was chewing on my speaker cords... It went away after about a week, haven't had a problem since.

To the OP, it seems like it is the sound card. I apparently have the worst luck with sound cards and I have replaced about 3 in the last year. Also, make sure your speakers are plugged in...