Sound Has Vanished.

Hello.

The sound on my Toshiba Equium laptop has gone. It went when I was connecting a projector to it. No sound at all.

My sound card is a Realtek High Definition audio (with SRS).

The laptop seems to be pretty damn sure that there is no problem with the driver or sound card.

The laptop is not set to mute in any capacity. I have checked the mixer for the levels. When I play music etc, the bar things will go up or down, stubbornly convinced that it is playing sound. It is not.

I have tried uninstalling, then reinstalling the sound driver, to no avail. Iv also checked the playback and the laptop is still convinced that everything is ok. When I check for updates for the driver. Laptop says I have the best damn driver going on.

I have also restored the laptop to a time when I could enjoy as much sound as I liked.
The laptop however, holds on to its new irritating, quiet personality trait.

Phoning the toshiba helpline, the man on the other end says that my sound card has 'packed up.' Do sound cards just 'pack up.' If so, is there any way of un-bloody-packing them?

People with similar problems on forums have been advised to check their BIOS and Chipsets. I dont know what these word mean or how to access them.

I would be eternally grateful to anyone who could advise me as Id rather not send the laptop away for an expensive pampering. It doesnt deserve it.

I understand you may need to know what my 'SPECS' are. I also dont know how to acquire this information, so I will need your guidance every step of the way.

Thanks a million in advance.

 

Oh yeah.... Vista....

 

Packed up usually means deceased. Caput. Dead. not working any more. For a laptop, I dont think there is any way of getting a new unit, as its integral to the motherboard.

 

Thanx for the smiley face. Took the edge off the pain of the bad news.

Can I buy an external sound card that would work?

 

Before you look at an external card, check to see if the sound is really gone. A tech will often tell you the easiest or commonest problem, without checking- its the easiest way normally.
For externals, I know that creative do have an external SC, that appears to work well, on a USB connection.
As your computer still says you have the sound, I would guess it still works- if it didnt, you would get a failure message or similar. I am pretty sure very sinilar probs have been posted and solved, it may be worth a scan through older posts to find some workrounds

 

Thanx for the advice Gulo. I have really exhausted all the applicable posts here plus given google a real going over. There are the same 5-6 solutions for people with no sound.

Everyone else with this problem seems to have a computer that acknowledges that it has a problem. These people generally have to get new drivers. For everyone else, its volume control of some sort with one of the many audio adjusting devices on their computer.

My computer doesn't acknowledge that there is a problem. There are no greyed out areas or exclamation marks or yellow bits. The computer is also positive my drivers are up to date. I am absolutely positive the thing isnt on mute.

The bar thing goes up and down when there is supposed to be sound. It clearly thinks there is sound which is encouraging.

Does anybody have any ideas?

Thankyou.