COMPUTER SPEAKER PROBLEM

[frank_f15]

a friend of ours called me last night, she said one of the speakers on her computer gives nothing but static, the other works fine, she went and bought new speakers and the same thing. i told her how to pull the sound card, diconnect every thing from the card, remove screw, and pull the card out, she called back and said it would not come out. did i miss something? do u think pulling it and resetting wil do anygood? or is the card just bad? what is the best way to clean the contacts? puter is 4 years old.
thanks for any help

 

[RoyJackson]

Sound cards are pretty cheap (depending on what you use 'em for...high end sound cards are over $100), however, did she put new speaker wires on as well as speakers? I'm kind of assuming the new speakers had new wiring, but that's a possibility.
I suspect she just didn't pull hard enough to get the card out. Unless you're somewhat experienced working inside the case, the amount of force used to install or remove PCI cards can be somewhat intimidating.

Does she just have this problem with CD's or CD-ROM's? Or is it any sounds...including from files on the hard drive? I'm getting to a potentially bad CD-ROM drive may be the problem.
IF all sounds are not heard on her speakers (both from CD's and those on the hard drive, she may well have a bad card. If that is the case, a nice lower priced card is the Hercules Fortissimo II.

 

[Mark_in_NH]

Does her computer even have a sound card ?
Or is it built into her mother board.

 

[frank_f15]

roy: she says if she puts in a cd and plugs in earphone on front of case she can hear it fine. just appears to be sounds that come out of speakers.

 

[frank_f15]

MARK; it is a sound card, she said it say SOUND BLASTER ON IT .

 

[RoyJackson]

roy: she says if she puts in a cd and plugs in earphone on front of case she can hear it fine. just appears to be sounds that come out of speakers.

Does she have a left and right channel jacks on her card (on the back of the case). If so, ask her to swap them around...see if the static emanates from the other speaker instead. Or, does she have a "Y" cable connecting the card to the speakers? If so, maybe that's bad...

If she's a good friend, why don't you pull your sound card and try it in her computer? Of course, this means uninstalling her card, removing it from the PC and replacing it with yours (don't forget to take your sound card installation disk). That would be the definitive test, don't you think?

A Sound Blaster is a fine card..but if it's 4 years old, it's getting a bit long in the tooth. BTW, what OS is she using? Win 98?

 

[Mark_in_NH]

I have found on my speakers that the wire that plugs into one speaker running to the 2nd speaker becomes unpluged from speaker one and it cause's side 2 to not work properly.
I think I would do a process of elimination, starting with speakers, speaker wires checking all plugs and onward back to the computer it'self.

 

[frank_f15]

ROY: don't know what she has in the back of her computer, and she is not home for me to find out. she is a good enough friend to do as u say, only she works days and i got stuck on the 2nd shift for awhile. so it will have to wait till i can get over there. will let u know what i find.

 

[Wingnut]

Roy, sounds like one of two things (ignore the fact that she can hear music thru headset when playing CD ... that doesn't go thru the soundcard) ... soundcard has gone south or she has a problem with the sound driver.
The fact that she does hear static (even on the old speakers) says that the speaker is working ...
Before yanking the card and fooling with it, I would get the drivers checked ... Windows is funny about corrupting drivers (at least in my experience). I find it expedient to always reload drivers before I do any trouble shooting since it usually turns out that's the problem.
If reloading the driver doesn't do the trick ... it sounds like the soundcard. Most cases are not cooled as well as electrical components would like and one of the electonic components may have dried out ....

 

[JohnMiller3]

<font color=blue>...sounds like one of two things... soundcard has gone south or she has a problem with the sound driver...</font color=blue>

I agree... if she has already subbed a proven new pair of speakers (and any "stereo speaker extension cable" she may be using)... by process of elimination... reload the audio drivers (remove the old drivers first) (reload from CD not hd area)... if you still have no audio output from the same channel... then the card is defective and replace...