Audio won't play

[Kevin Young]

I've got something odd going on: suddenly, I can't get any audio to play, be it i-Tunes, Adobe Audition or a web application. In sound applications, such as iTunes and Audition, there is no visual indicatin that the file is even playing. If I run video, from iTunes for example, the video will play, with no sound.

Here's what may have caused it. I was trying to test whether Skype would work better on a cat-5 connection to my home network, as opposed to a wireless connection. So, I disconnected the wireless connection, hooked up the cable, and started fooling around (fool is the right word) with my network connections. I thought I'd "undone" everything I had done, but the result is described above.

I would be grateful for any suggested trouble-shooting.

Thanks!

Kevin

[Arpatle]

I think your computer lost contact with your sound card. Maybe your card was pushed out of its place during fooling (btw, I believe fooling is the best way to unfool yourself). You can also try to push the card in another slot, if it's not an onboard one. Can you tell us which sound card you are using and which OS? Does the device manager say anything?

[robertruetz]

This may sound silly, but I've had my sound disappear before because an application had muted the main volume in my sound manager. Open up the volume control panel for Windows and make sure all of your volumes are correct there, if you haven't done so already.

Rob
:cool:

[Kevin Young]

Many, many thanks to both of you!

Robert, that was a good suggestion. It's easy to accidently change some of the software settings, but I've gone through all of them now, and done the Windows "troubleshooting" and all of the software seems to be okay.

Arpatle suggested something I wouldn't have thought of, that I could have juggled something lose on the PC itself, connect and disconnecting cables. I'm still trying to find new ways to troubleshoot that. My PC is a Dell, and came with a Realtek sound card. What I use most of the time, is the Firewire PCI card, connected to a Mackie Onyx 1220. The 3-port IEEE-1394 Firewire card is made by Startech. I took it out and re-seated it; I tried using one of the different ports. I made sure the other end is connected fine to the Mackie. All of that seems to be fine. The Realtek sound sytems isn't the usual type of card that goes into a slot, it seems to this inexperienced eye to be built onto the computer. So, maybe I'll try tech support with the Startech folks.

In my troubleshooting, I did learn that I can't get any sound to play, not even a Windows system card. The Mackie board is working fine.

Another thing I discovered is that in Adobe Audition, when I have the Onyx ASIO selected as hardware, I can't even get the file to play. If I select Audition 3.0 Windows Sound, the file APPEARS to be playing, with the clock moving, and curser moving. Just no sound.

Maybe I should post this over on the sound card forum?

Thansk to both of you. Any further thoughts or ideas are appreciated.

Sincerely,

Kevin

[Kevin Young]

I forgot to answer this question: I'm using Windows XP, the sound card is onboard, Realtek, and as I did mention, the Firewire card is from Startech.com.

And, the device manager seems to think everything is working just fine. Could the Firewire cable be the problem?

Again, many thanks!

Kevin