Sound Card Stopped Working

[Shoe]

Today, the sound started to come through the speakers on the monitor
instead of coming through my sound card and speakers. The monitor is
connected with HDMI cable which carries sound as well as video. Device
manager shows that my Creative sound card is working properly. The
speakers are working properly, but no sound is coming from them. I
disabled the on-board sound and then had no sound. I have no idea what
caused this and do not know anything to do in Windows to fix this. I
am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. I would appreciate any
suggestions of how to tell the system to use the sound card.

 

[Ed Cryer]

Today, the sound started to come through the speakers on the monitor
instead of coming through my sound card and speakers. The monitor is
connected with HDMI cable which carries sound as well as video. Device
manager shows that my Creative sound card is working properly. The
speakers are working properly, but no sound is coming from them. I
disabled the on-board sound and then had no sound. I have no idea what
caused this and do not know anything to do in Windows to fix this. I
am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. I would appreciate any
suggestions of how to tell the system to use the sound card.

It's a first shot but I've seen this happen accidentally.
Go into Control Panel/ Hardware and Sound, and click on Sound. Make sure
that the correct speakers are ticked. You can try the lot to see what
happens.

Ed

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Today, the sound started to come through the speakers on the monitor
instead of coming through my sound card and speakers. The monitor is
connected with HDMI cable which carries sound as well as video. Device
manager shows that my Creative sound card is working properly. The
speakers are working properly, but no sound is coming from them. I
disabled the on-board sound and then had no sound. I have no idea what
caused this and do not know anything to do in Windows to fix this. I
am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. I would appreciate any
suggestions of how to tell the system to use the sound card.

My first though was that it's a setting in the monitor, and that you
have to go to the monitor's front panel setup. Browse through the whole
thing, since those menus seem to me never to be well organized.

If you had mentioned the brand and model of the monitor, you could have
gotten specific help, I bet.

Anyway, I just looked, and I can't find such a setting on my LG IPS236.
This also has the side effect of making me think my suggestion is
probably bogus

So if I am wrong, then you need to browse through all of your sound card
setup (my comments about organization apply here too). Again, I can't
find anything that looks right for that on my computer, although I know
there is something somewhere in either the computer or the monitor,
since I briefly used the monitor sound output early on, just as a
test...

As for the report from Device Manager that the "Creative sound card is
working properly" - you need a small amount of NaCl. All that means is
that Device Manager is happy with the interface to the card's drivers.

Hang on a minute...Before sending this, I went back to my sound card's
setup. On the playback devices panel, if I right click on any visible
device I get the option to display disabled devices, and now my monitor
appears, and I can select it and set it as default.

Cool!

Mind you, this monitor has no speakers, so unless I plug a speaker into
the plug on the back, when I do the above, I get silence

To get to that panel, I right-click on the speaker icon in the
notification area (system tray) and choose Playback Devices.

 

[Ed Cryer]

My first though was that it's a setting in the monitor, and that you
have to go to the monitor's front panel setup. Browse through the whole
thing, since those menus seem to me never to be well organized.

If you had mentioned the brand and model of the monitor, you could have
gotten specific help, I bet.

Anyway, I just looked, and I can't find such a setting on my LG IPS236.
This also has the side effect of making me think my suggestion is
probably bogus

So if I am wrong, then you need to browse through all of your sound card
setup (my comments about organization apply here too). Again, I can't
find anything that looks right for that on my computer, although I know
there is something somewhere in either the computer or the monitor,
since I briefly used the monitor sound output early on, just as a
test...

As for the report from Device Manager that the "Creative sound card is
working properly" - you need a small amount of NaCl. All that means is
that Device Manager is happy with the interface to the card's drivers.

Hang on a minute...Before sending this, I went back to my sound card's
setup. On the playback devices panel, if I right click on any visible
device I get the option to display disabled devices, and now my monitor
appears, and I can select it and set it as default.

Cool!

Mind you, this monitor has no speakers, so unless I plug a speaker into
the plug on the back, when I do the above, I get silence

To get to that panel, I right-click on the speaker icon in the
notification area (system tray) and choose Playback Devices.

My monitor is a TV with inbuilt speakers. I have a separate speaker
system as well. And I get sound out of every single one, which is very
rich and fulsome.
I have a splitter 3.5mm jack plugged into the card itself, and into that
go leads from the TV and the independent speakers.

If either lead came loose or failed, then I'd be left with sound from
just one of the two. Nothing would show up in Windows settings at all;
not even if both leads were removed.

Ed

 

[SC Tom]

Today, the sound started to come through the speakers on the monitor
instead of coming through my sound card and speakers. The monitor is
connected with HDMI cable which carries sound as well as video. Device
manager shows that my Creative sound card is working properly. The
speakers are working properly, but no sound is coming from them. I
disabled the on-board sound and then had no sound. I have no idea what
caused this and do not know anything to do in Windows to fix this. I
am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. I would appreciate any
suggestions of how to tell the system to use the sound card.

Kind of a round-about way to fix it, but here's what I had to do. I have Win7 HP on my laptop, and an HDMI output for
video and sound when attaching it to my wide-screen TV. When I first plugged it into the TV, I couldn't get any sound at
all. By right-clicking the volume icon in the systray and selecting Playback Devices (as Gene posted) , I could choose
the HDMI output, and then had sound. Unfortunately, every time I unplugged it, then went back to it, I had to do that
again; it wouldn't auto-select. What I found was that when I was hooked to the TV, I had to set HDMI as the default.
Then, when I unplugged it, the sound wouldn't come through the laptop speakers, so I went in and made them the default,
and now each time I plug into the TV, the HDMI is selected automatically, even though it's no longer the default. Don't
know why, but it works now. You would probably want to go the other way though and make your Creative card the default.

 

[John Ferrell]

When two soundcards are present, one is default. If the application
does not otherwise specify, the default card is used. It is not
unusual for an amateur radio operator to use two sound sound cards at
the same time. One of them is used for signal processing.

The control panel does it all, fiddle with it until you get what you
want. If you create a utility to change the setup without using the
cumbersome control panel, please share it. It exists for XP Pro but
not for Win 7.

The settinings do seem to get dinged occaisionally.

Today, the sound started to come through the speakers on the monitor
instead of coming through my sound card and speakers. The monitor is
connected with HDMI cable which carries sound as well as video. Device
manager shows that my Creative sound card is working properly. The
speakers are working properly, but no sound is coming from them. I
disabled the on-board sound and then had no sound. I have no idea what
caused this and do not know anything to do in Windows to fix this. I
am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. I would appreciate any
suggestions of how to tell the system to use the sound card.

John Ferrell W8CCW