From Smartcomputing magazine
Sound Cards
Fixing Common Sound Problems
Silence is golden . . . except when the silence is the result of a malfunctioning sound card in your computer. Then the silence is apt to be broken by some unflattering, PG-13-rated comments about the reliability of computer components.
A sound card is a hardware device that gives your computer the ability to play and record sounds. Without a properly functioning sound card, your computer would be limited to the primitive-sounding beeps available with its internal speaker, and no one really wants that.
Fortunately, most sound card problems can be solved fairly easily.
Sound Advice. Here are some troubleshooting tips for fixing some of the most common problems you’ll encounter with a sound card.
Problem: Your computer’s sound was working great yesterday; today it’s doing its best impersonation of a mime.
Solution: Determine whether the cause for the lack of sound lies with your sound card or with your speakers.
First, though, let’s check some easy-to-fix solutions. On the right side of your Windows Taskbar, look for the speaker icon. If the icon has a red circle and line through it, your system has been muted. Double-click the speaker icon and remove the check mark from the Mute All checkbox in the Volume Control window. You also may need to turn up the volume level.
Use the Sounds Properties window to set system sounds.
Determine whether Windows is using your sound card as the default audio device. Click the Start button, Settings, and Control Panel. Double-click the Multimedia icon and click the Audio tab. Your sound card should be listed as the preferred device for playback.
Make sure your speakers are plugged into the correct jack on your sound card. If your speakers require power, make sure they are plugged in (you should see an indicator light on the front of the speaker) and make sure they’re turned on. If the speaker has a volume control knob, make sure it’s turned up at least to the medium setting.
If no easy solution exists, try plugging headphones into the speaker jack on the sound card. If you hear sound now, the problem probably lies with your speakers. However, if you still hear no sound, it’s probably a problem with the sound card.
Once you’ve determined that your sound card is the problem, read on for potential solutions. If the problem lies with your speakers, then refer to the “Speakers” article found in this issue for more troubleshooting tips.
Problem: Your sound card won’t work with certain software programs. There is no sound at all or the sound is garbled.
Solution: Your sound card’s driver probably has become corrupted or may need to be updated. (A driver is a piece of software that lets hardware communicate with the operating system.)
Check with the sound card’s manufacturer or, if the card was preinstalled in your computer, check with the computer’s manufacturer to determine whether new drivers are available. New sound card drivers provide older sound cards with new instructions for working with new types of hardware and software. Most manufacturers make sound card driver updates available on their Web sites. If you can’t find the drivers at the manufacturers’ Web site, try DriverGuide .com (http://www.driverguide.com), DriversHQ (http://www.drivershq.com), or WinDrivers.com (http://www.windrivers.com).
Downloading a new driver can solve a multitude of sound card problems.
If you don’t think the problem is because of an older driver, make sure your audio settings for the software in question are correct. Check the software user guide for information telling you how to manually configuring the audio settings.
Problem: You’re not hearing any sound and/or receive poor-quality sound from audio CDs in your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
Solution: We’ll assume you can hear other sounds, such as WAV files. (If not, see the above tip.) First, make sure your optical drive (CD-ROM or DVD-ROM) is working properly. Try inserting a different audio CD or a CD-ROM disc to see whether the drive is working OK. You can plug headphones into the audio jack on the front of the optical drive. If you hear audio through this jack, the drive probably is working properly. If so, your speakers are most likely the problem.
If the problem seems to be with your optical drive, make sure your optical drive settings are correct under Windows. Click the Start button, Settings, and Control Panel. Double-click Multimedia. In the Multimedia Properties window, click the CD Music tab. Make sure your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive letter is marked correctly and the CD Music Volume level is at the middle setting or higher.
Next, check the audio cable that connects the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive with the sound card. (You’ll have to open the computer case to check this.) If the cable isn’t connected tightly or is connected incorrectly, adjust the cable’s connectors. If all the cables seem to be connected, you may need to replace the audio cable connecting the optical drive and the sound card.
If you’re having problems with poor audio quality from your audio CDs, you may just have a slow CD-ROM drive. If the unit is a few years old, you may want to consider a replacement.
Problem: You can’t hear streaming music from the Internet, such as Internet radio stations.
Solution: Make sure you have the proper audio player software installed on your computer. At most Internet sites that offer streaming musical files, you will find links to two of the most popular audio players, RealPlayer from Real Networks (http://www.real.com) and Windows Media Player from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia).
Keep in mind that listening to streaming music isn’t always an easy proposition, especially over a dial-up Internet connection. (Streaming music files are played in real time rather than being downloaded and stored on your hard drive.) Heavy Internet traffic can cause spotty sound quality. Dividing your system’s resources between several programs while trying to run a streaming audio file can cause poor sound quality or audio that starts and stops intermittently.
If you aren’t lucky enough to have a broadband, high-speed Internet connection, you may just have to try making your dial-up Internet connection at a different time to achieve better audio quality. Overall Internet traffic just might be too heavy to allow for high-quality streaming audio.
Problem: System sounds, such as the ones that occur at Windows startup and shutdown, have silenced themselves or are different than what you set.
Solution: First, make sure other types of sounds are still playing. If no sounds are playing, try the tips at the beginning of this article.
If other sounds are playing, then sev eral possibilities exist. A prankster may have changed your settings, your system sound files may have been deleted, or a sound scheme may have been selected inadvertently.
System sounds are accessible by clicking the Start button, Settings, and Control Panel. Double-click the Sounds icon. In the Events area of the Sounds Properties window, you should see some speaker icons located to the left of some of the system events. If you see no speaker icons, all of your system sounds have been reset. You can manually reassign the system sounds by highlighting an event. Then select a sound from the Name text menu or by clicking the Browse button and finding the file you want.
When all else fails, try the Windows 98 Sound Troubleshooter for additional help in fixing your sound card problem.
In the Schemes text box, you can select a sound scheme by which Windows will assign similar sounds to various system events. If someone has selected a new scheme for your computer, your system sounds will have changed. The No Sounds scheme will silence all of your system sounds.
Problem: Your audio quality doesn’t seem to be as good as it should be. The sound is sometimes scratchy.
Solution: Download the latest driver for your sound card as described earlier. This should fix most of these types of problems.
If a new driver doesn’t help, you may have an older sound card that simply can’t reproduce high-quality audio files. If after making several tweaks, you can’t achieve the audio quality you want, you may need to upgrade to a newer sound card.
Poor-quality audio also can be caused by speakers instead of the sound card. Most computer speakers aren’t high-quality speakers, which could cause some poor audio. If you have the highest-quality sound card, it won’t do you much good with a pair of cheap computer speakers.
If, however, you’ve upgraded to a high-quality set of at least four speakers for surround sound (four channels), you’ll need a sound card that supports four channels. Newer sound cards contain two line-out jacks to handle four channels. You can run four speakers from a sound card with one line-out jack, but the quality won’t be as high.
Problem: Your audio recordings are of a poor quality or don’t work at all.
Solution: While having a high-quality sound card is important for making high-quality recordings, other aspects of your computer can have a major effect on your recordings.
Make sure you have a high-quality microphone to create good recordings; the tiny microphone that shipped with your computer probably won’t cut it.
Under Windows, be sure to set your recording quality at the highest possible level. Click the Start button, Settings, and Control Panel. In the Multimedia Properties window, click the Audio tab. In the Recording area, click Advanced Properties to set the slider bars for the highest-quality recordings.
Finally, if you can’t make any record ings at all, make sure your microphone is plugged into the correct jack on the sound card. You can check the status of your microphone by making a simple recording using Windows Sound Recorder. In Windows 98, click the Start button, Programs, Accessories, Entertainment, and Sound Recorder. In the Sound Recorder window, click the red Record button and make a sample recording.
If you can make simple recordings using Sound Recorder and you’re using other audio software to try and make recordings, the other software may be malfunctioning.
Problem: When using telephony software, you are having problems with two-way communications.
Solution: Your sound card probably doesn’t support full-duplex transmission. (In full-duplex transmission, data can be sent and received simultaneously, similar to a normal telephone call. In half-duplex transmission, data can be sent only one way at a time, similar to a walkie-talkie.)
While drivers for new sound cards nearly always offer full-duplex transmission capabilities, older sound card drivers may only have half-duplex capabilities. Try downloading an updated driver as described earlier.
If All Else Fails . . . Finally, here are a few last-ditch tips for fixing sound card problems.
• Try using the Win98 Sound Troubleshooter built into Win98 for some step-by-step instruction on fixing problems. Click the Start button and then Help. Next, click the Index tab, type sound troubleshooter in the Keyword text box, and press ENTER to gain access to the troubleshooter.
• If you have an older sound card, check the back of it for a volume wheel. Older models controlled volume through a wheel, and it may have been turned down..
• Make sure all of the chips on the sound card are firmly in place.
by Kyle Schurman
Installation Woes
You’ve just finished installing your new sound card and are ready to test it. Unfortunately, no matter what you do, you get no response.
Ah, it’s the most frustrating of all installation problems—no response at all. Take a deep breath, keep all sharp objects out of reach, and try the following tips.
1. Determine whether the Windows operating system is recognizing the card. When you boot the computer after installation, you should see an Installation Wizard window, which offers to walk you step-by-step through the process of installing the hardware drivers needed for the sound card.
If Windows doesn’t recognize the sound card as new hardware, you probably don’t have it inserted correctly.
2. Make sure the sound card’s connector strip is completely seated in your PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) or ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) card slot. Once the card is installed properly you should see no more than a sliver of the copper/gold conductor strips on the card sticking above the expansion slot.
3. It sometimes can be a tight fit. Try inserting one corner of the card’s connector strip into the slot first. Then gently rock the connector strip into place.
4. When inserting the card, keep it aligned with the expansion slot. Never wiggle or try to force the card from side to side at a 90-degree angle to the slot; you could snap the card or damage some of the chips.
5. Try installing the sound card as far away from other components as possible to minimize potential interference noise.
6. Once the card is inserted properly, be sure to connect the sound card to your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive with the audio cable. The audio cable usually consists of four thin wires with plastic connectors on either end. One corner of the cable connector usually is notched or labeled, which will help you install it properly on the sound card.
7. After checking the interior components for potential problems, it’s time to determine whether you have a hardware conflict. Click the Start button, Settings, and Control Panel. Double-click the System icon and select the Device Manager tab. Click the plus sign (+) next to Sound, Video and Game Controllers. Highlight the sound card’s listing and click the Properties button. In the Device Status area of the General tab, you’ll see a message about whether the sound card is working properly.
If there’s an error, you may need to contact your sound card’s manufacturer for instructions on changing its settings. You also can try moving the sound card to a different PCI slot.
These tips should solve the common problems you may encounter after installing a new sound card. But, under the worst-case scenario, your new sound card simply might be incompatible with your existing computer setup. If you have problems booting your computer after installing the sound card or if other components also begin behaving strangely, an incompatibility is possible.
In this case, you’ll either have to try another sound card or call the sound card’s manufacturer to see whether some updated hardware drivers are available to fix the problem.
It’s also possible the sound card is broken. Perhaps it was damaged during installation, or it may never have worked. Contact the manufacturer or the store where you purchased it to determine your next step. |
