# How do you know if your sound card is bad



## Ogemaniac (Dec 28, 2008)

Last week, my computer stopped making any sound, not even Windows bleeps and blips. I have spent quite a while trying to fix the problem to no avail.

My computer is a Dell E510, Windows XP and a Soundblaster X-Fi ExtremeMusic SB0467 card (a Dell-only sound card, I believe).

Here is what I have tried:

The obvious stuff: No sound from two different head sets and two different sets of speakers, via any port on my computer. I have spent several hours fiddling with "Sounds and Audio Devices" and "System" in the Control Panel. It is not something stupid such as mute being clicked somewhere. Windows does not indicate any problem with the sound card.

Re-installing drivers. At the time the problem, the driver was from 2006, when I bought the cpu. I had windows do an automatic update, and it switched to a 2007 driver. This promptly turned all my sound and volume menus to Japanese, but had no other effect (I do have Japanese language enabled but English is the default language on my computer, and ONLY the sound/volume menus are in Japanese...very annoying but I can mostly read them). I then downloaded the newest driver (dated 12/17/2008) from Creative's site, but this driver gave several errors during installation, and when installed, causes memory failures if I try to play any games. I also re-installed all X-Fi software and drivers directly from the disk that came with my computer.

Re-seating the sound card to the other PCI slot. This changed nothing.

Doing a system restore to the day before the problem started. This seemed to change everything back to exactly the way it was EXCEPT for the sound problems and the Japanese issue. Classic...

Windows says the card is working properly, but there is no sound at all. I have gotten Windows to give three bleeps, but they have not been reproducible.

Immediately before the problem occured, I had updated Itunes. My first indication of something being wrong was the Itunes EULA being in Japanese. The new Itunes worked properly, but while Itunes was still running, I noted that Firefox was not playing sound. I tried several other programs, but they also failed to play sound. Critically, Itunes _kept making sound_ until I closed the program. Upon re-opening it, it also failed to play sounds. The period of time where Itunes was working and nothing else was makes me suspicious. Also, somewhere during this time period I plugged in my usb headphones, but I can't remember exactly where I was in the process. Sometimes the headphones have done funny things to my sound that required a reboot.

In any case, is it likely I have a bad card, despite Windows saying all is well? Or is it likely a software issue? How can I tell? I don't want to buy a new card unless I am sure the old one is broken, and I don't have a second cpu available to test the current one in.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!


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## Spop (Jan 9, 2003)

Let's try this. Goto Start>Run. Inside the run box type in dxdiag and press enter. In the DirectX Diagnostics click on the sound tab and music, and run some tests. Are they successful?


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## Ogemaniac (Dec 28, 2008)

I checked the DirectX diagnostics as you suggested. No problems were detected, but no sound was made when running the "Sound1" (Soundblaster) "Sound2" (built-in Sigmatel Audio) or "Music tabs".

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your time!


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## lawson_jl (Aug 3, 2008)

Try swaping out the sound card for a differnt one. At this point you've done so much to the system that it's hard to tell if you will ever find the problem if it turns otu to be software. A way to check out the card without swaping it out is using a Linux Live CD. If the sound card works then it should be able to make sound just fine. If it's a hardware issue the it won't work then either.


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