» Computer Sound Issues - How To Fix

1. Make sure your speakers are on and plugged into power.

As I've said in other articles, nothing can run without power. Make sure your speakers are plugged into a power outlet and that the outlet itself is working.

2. Make sure your speaker wires are in the right place.

Basic Speakers may just have the one wire, but If you have anything other than the bare minimum, there's going to be 2, 3 or even 4. And if you don't plug the right wires into the corresponding plugs, your system won't work. The one that every system has is the plug for the main speakers and it's pretty universal that green corresponds to these, and therefore should go into the green jack. If there aren't matching colors, the speaker jack should have some sort of symbol depicting a speaker or headphones radiating sound, or something similar. If you have anything more than a two speaker system, for example a 5 speaker surround sound system, you will have more to deal with. The green will be for the front left and right speakers, but you will have two more wires that correspond to the front center speaker and the back left and back right speakers. On my Logitech system these are black and orange respectively. Now there is another jack for a microphone, which I have encountered as pink most of the time. But even without a color there should be a symbol depicting a microphone beside it.On a side note, most sound cards will have three plugs, one for the main speakers, another for the front center speaker, and one for a microphone. In order to have a surround sound computer system you usually need a higher end sound card that supports those extra back two. But don't worry if you have a big speaker set and don't have enough plugs for everything, the main speakers will still work, you'll just have to upgrade Cards to get the surround sound experience. Now if all else fails and your cords and plugs are the wrong colors and there aren't any symbols depicting which is which, a simple trial and error will eventually work, plug each wire into each plug, and one of them should eventually work.

3. Check windows volume control aren't turned down or muted.

I know I've done this a thousand times. Turned on some music, heard nothing, had a mini-panic attack about my speakers being broken, and then realizing that the sound was just muted. To start with, make sure your speakers themselves are turned on. Many speakers will have a button that turns them on when they're plugged in. They also may have a volume knob that you can turn to adjust the sound, make sure this isn't turned all the way down.Most applications that involve sound (for example windows media player or itunes) will have a built in volume control somewhere in the interface. These can look like a slider or meter that shows a speaker with sound waves coming out to show what it is. Make sure this is turned up and the mute box (if it has one) is unchecked. Now Windows has a master volume control that sits near the clock on the bottom right corner of the screen. If you double click the speaker icon, then the sliders will come up. Make sure they are all turned up to how loud you want them. Now if all this doesn't work, it could simply be your system is trying to play through the wrong device. If (in Vista) you right click your volume control and select "playback devices" from the list, you should open up a window that lets you change the device.

Or in XP, you can right click your volume control and go to "Adjust Audio Properties" and then go to the Audio tab.

Now if you have more than one device in this screen then select one, and click set default, and try your sound, and then the other, click set default, and try the sound. Click OK when you find the one that works.

4. Make sure your sound card drive is installed and working.

Now this step is a little bit more complex, though not awfully so. Sound cards have drivers that run them, so if there's no driver, then your sound card won't work. There sound be a driver CD that came with your computer with the right driver on it, so look for that and use the CD to install or re-install the driver. Failing that, most manufacturers will have the drivers to their products on their website so if you know the maker of your card you can simply go to the website and download it. Additionally if you know the model number of your card you can sometimes input that into Google or other search engine and it will take you to a site where you can download your driver. In order to find the model number of your card you have to look at the card and you have to take apart the computer to do so and I don't really recommend that unless you really know what you're doing.

Well that should be about it for basic sound troubleshooting. This should cover anything that's not a real malfunction, hope it helps!

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