Computer,Sound, computer No Computer Sound

Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc ----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a

----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and theresource box below is included.---------------------------------------------------------- No Computer SoundBy Stephen BucaroToday's computer equipped with a sound card is capable ofgenerating sound from many different sound and music formatfiles. Formats include WAV, MIDI, MP3, and many more.Conversion of these sound format files to actual audiorelies on several layers of software and hardware. Themost basic sound format file compatible with the Windowsoperating system is the WAV file format. Beforetroubleshooting any of the more complex formats, make surethat your system is capable of playing WAV files.The Windows operating system has a built-in program calledSound Recorder to record and play WAV files. To open SoundRecorder, select Start | Programs | Accessories |Entertainment and click on Sound Recorder. In the SoundRecorder program, select File | Open. In the Open dialogbox, navigate to C:WindowsMedia and select one of theWAV files to play. Click the Open button and then the Playbutton (right arrow).If you hear the WAV file play, then your basic soundconfiguration is working properly. If you did not hear the WAV file play, continue reading (troubleshootingproblems with the more complex sound file formatswill be covered in future article).The first thing you should do is eliminate the obviouspossibilities. Many speakers have a volume control on oneof the speakers. Many times I have thought that the soundwas not working in one of my programs, only to find thatsomeone turned the volume control all the way down.You can test your speakers by plugging them into theheadphone jack on your CD-ROM drive and playing a musicCD. This bypasses the sound card.Check the Windows Volume Control by right-clicking on thespeaker icon in the Task Bar and Selecting "Open VolumeContols" in the popup menu that appears.Open the Multimedia utility in Control Panel (Start |Settings | Control Panel) and select the Audio tab. Makesure that your soundcard's Playback device is selected inthe Playback section. If that looks correct, open the System utility in Control Panel and select the Device Manager tab. In Device Manager,open the "Sound video and game controllers" branch. Clickon the name of your sound card to select it, then click onthe Properties button. In the Sound Card Properties dialogbox, select the General tab and verify that "Disable inthis hardware profile" is not checked. Select the Drivertab and make sure that a driver is selected. Click on theResources tab and make sure there is no conflicts.Resource conflicts related to sound cards are usuallycaused by sharing an IRQ (Interrupt Request). The defaultsetting for a sound card is usually IRQ 5. The sound cardshould not share an IRQ with any other device.If you can't determine the reason why the sound card doesnot work, or you can't solve a resource conflict, you mayneed to uninstall and re-install the sound card.To uninstall the sound card, open the Add/Remove Programsutility in Control Panel. Scroll through the list ofinstalled software and select any programs related to yoursound card. Click on the Add/Remove button to uninstallthe program.Open the System utility in Control Panel and select theDevice Manager tab. In Device Manager open the "Soundvideo and game controllers" branch. Click on the name ofyour sound card and then click on the Remove button.After removing the sound card's software and drivers, turnoff the computer and physically remove the sound card.I like to restart the computer without the sound card tomake sure Windows plug-an-play can't find any of the software components of the sound card. Then turn off the computer and re-install the sound card in a differentslot. You may have to switch slots with another card.If your computer can play WAV files, then that verifiesthat your sound card has been installed properly and yourspeakers are working. Playing more complex sound fileformats like MIDI or MP3 requires more layers of software.We will cover how to troubleshoot those in futurearticles.----------------------------------------------------------Resource Box:Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintainyour computer and use it more effectively to design a Website and make money on the Web visithttp://bucarotechelp.comTo subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blankemail to bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com---------------------------------------------------------- Article Tags: Sound Card, More Complex, Volume Control, Control Panel