We start the first video in our series “From The Eyes Of The Computer Tech.” I know that sounded super lame but I’m keeping it anyway, I’m not redoing this. What I am trying to do is pick an issue and show you how I would probably would go about troubleshooting it in Windows. Maybe some of the steps I show you in this video will help you solve whatever issue you have.

This video will show, today’s focus is on sound card or sound issues. If your sound isn’t working now. The message that I am about to show you’ll probably handle a variety of sound card issues and it would be definitely a good spot to start.

I’m going to assume that you checked the physical and all these videos I’m going to do that. For sound for example, make sure that your speakers work. Make sure that your speakers are connected. Make sure your speakers are plugged in and also of course plugged in to the right port on the back of your computer.

All these things, I have to assume that you have done. Those are kind of the first three things that I’ve checked. If sound issue is arising at a home PC, I’d check to make sure the speakers work. Maybe using a disc man or something like that, mp3 player and plug in your speakers on them. See if it works independently in the computer.

Make sure that something didn’t get back there and unplugged the sound card or the audio cable from the back of the computer or anything weird like that. That will probably fix a lot more issues than you might think. Things just get loose over time or speakers go bad or all sorts of stuff and it can all lead to a lot of panic when $15 a set of new speakers will probably fix your problem.

Let’s pretend that the audio is not working and I’ve checked the physical and I know the speakers work. And I know that they are connected correctly and all that. I would probably start down here at the lower right hand corner and see if there is this little speaker icon. If there is, I double click on it and check my volumes. Make sure everything is turned up, make sure nothing is muted.

Sometimes these things get muted by accident, some computers have shortcut keys that mute the audio. Make sure that the audio is turned up and that everything works. Another thing that you can check is under the options and then properties. Here you will see your mixer device and I have my headset showing here and then my Realtek AC‑97 audio that’s on board audio card.

You want to check each individual settings and make sure, the volume control and all that kind of stuff is turned on and all these sorts of things. Make sure that you have a device showing here. If everything shows here, the next step I would take would be closing these. Right clicking on my computer, just go into properties, then hardware, then device manager, and going down to nearly the bottom where it’s a sound video and game controllers, hitting the little plus sign next to it. As you see it will expose a lot of devices.

If you don’t know what your actual sound card is, it’s pretty safe to remove all of these, but for me here, it’s my realtek AC‑97 audio, so I’d uninstall it. I’m not quite sure how it will affect my screen cast so I’m not going to actually uninstall it. But by clicking the button up here you can uninstall it or you can right click on it and uninstall it.

Then you can click on the little computer with the magnifying glass to scan for hardware changes and then the computer will reinstall it. This will essentially reinstall the driver that your computer uses for the device and that can fix a lot of problems, too.

Now if that doesn’t fix it, you might double click on the device, it will bring up the actual properties of the audio card and if you look at driver, you can try updating the driver or rolling back the driver. If you have recently installed a new driver, that can cause a lot of problems. Maybe Windows Update put one on it that you didn’t even notice. Try rolling it back if you can and see if that fixes it.

Or go to the other direction and update it and see if that fixes it. All these other things they don’t really tell you heck of a lot so outside of those two items, here it says the device isn’t working properly but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have audio.

Now if you have uninstalled and reinstalled and it still doesn’t work, I would try a new driver. So if you can discover actually what it is so it’s realtek AC‑97 audio, I would hit Google for example and type it in and then type driver maybe after it and you have realtek.com. Perfect, that is the manufacturer’s card. Click on that. Sometimes if you have a Compaq or an HP or something like that, they may have some weird off brand but you can always find the downloads.

Typically, if you have an HP or Dell or Compaq or any major manufacturer, you can just go to the manufacturer’s website and download the driver. You need the audio file. But you can see here, they provide the drivers for me. ’98, XP, I’m running XP so there it is, and I can just download it and install it.

This will also fix a lot of problems. To recap what I showed you. Make sure the audio settings are working, the volume is on and everything is not muted. The next thing that I would try is uninstall and reinstall, then I will try rolling back or updating the driver. If Windows doesn’t find an updated driver, go to the web and download the driver provided by the manufacturer. Again, if you don’t know who makes your sound card, that can be a little tricky.

But even if you didn’t know it for example you have a Dell or an HP, you can typically go to their website and type the model of your computer and it will give you, it will tell you what audio card you have. Then if they provide a couple, download all of them and install one then reboot, and test it if you are not quite sure.

Generally I’ve never run into real big problems trying a couple of different drivers. Make sure your speakers are turned on, turned up and plugged in properly. Make sure the drivers are OK.

If you actually have a PCI sound card, other than maybe opening the side of the computer, pulling it out and switching slots, that’s kind of all the first five steps that I would do if the PC was on my bench. Now the next step I would probably do, beyond that is I’d pick up a sound card from someplace that does have an excellent return policy like maybe Wal‑Mart or Office Max or something, where they’ll just return something, no questions asked. Pick up a new sound card, throw it in there and see if it fixes the problem because you know that’s one of the alternative if those first steps didn’t work, I’ll try maybe a completely new fresh copy of Windows which between you and me I’d rather throw $15 sound card in there than reload Windows, in most cases.

Me personally, I guess I would just probably reload Windows because I don’t really keep any files on the computer that aren’t backed up but for you just maybe pick up a sound card, throw it in there and see if it fixes your problem. If it does, you can either chose to continue troubleshooting or you can chose to say, “Hey, whatever I have a $20 sound card in there that fixed the problem. I’m moving on with life.”

Check the physical, check the software and typically, I would say 80‑90% of your problems especially if you are running XP or Vista, that’s going to fix it. If these don’t fix your problems, please post on our message board or if there’s any other tips that you guys find in troubleshooting in audio cards, let us know.

The days of IRQ conflicts are probably gone, but if there is something that I have missed, please post and remember our website is beyourownit.com where we provide a blog that is updated all the time, free text for articles, free text forum and product reviews and all sorts of stuff, all for free. Beyourownit.com and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can keep you up‑to‑date on all the news videos that we upload and last thing, don’t forget we do take requests. Send your requests in to help@beyourownit.com and we will give you an update pretty soon. Thanks.