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Sound suddenly disappeared
I have a Windows Vista Dell Inspiron 530 which I have had for quite a few years. Suddenly today this is no sound. If I open up iTunes my songs won't play at all. If I try to play a video in Media Player it says "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file. For additional assistance, click Web Help." (if I click Web Help I get taken to a page titled "Windows Media Player error C00D11B1"). Nothing that plays a sound works.
If I go into the Sound section of the Control Panel, on the Playback tab, there are 2 entries:
1 - Digital Display Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device
Not plugged in
(has a red down-arrow icon)
Speakers
RealTek High Definition Audio
Working
(has a green check mark icon)
I have not made any changes to my computer and I had sound yesterday.
I am hoping that someone can help me as I have *no* idea what happened or how to fix it.
osprey4
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March 16th, 2014 06:00
Digital display audio is the audio signal that goes through your HDMI-out port. Unless you are sending an AV signal to something like an HDTV, you will not be using this. That's why it says not plugged in.
Those 6to4 adapter entries are nothing to worry about. Just google it and you'll see why. I would ignore them.
The F12 partition is accessed during boot. When you see the Dell logo, it will provide two prompts, F2 for getting into the BIOS and F12 for accessing the utility partition. It's a non-Windows environment for testing hardware.
osprey4
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March 15th, 2014 05:00
Hi Hornacek,
Please go to device manager and tell me if you see any exclamation points next to your audio adapter, which would indicate a driver problem. If you do not see any problem there, please boot to the F12 partition and run the Dell diagnostics on your audio adapter. That will test it to determine if there is a hardware problem. Let me know if the diagnostics report any problems.
Hornacek
7 Posts
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March 15th, 2014 18:00
Ok, after my original post I rebooted my computer and when it came back on the sound was working. I had tried rebooting it before making my original post so I don't know why it fixed it this time and not before. But when I open that Sound window it still says:
1 - Digital Display Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device
Not plugged in
And it still has the red down-arrow icon instead of a green checkmark icon (like Speakers has).
So I don't know if something is still broken or not. I have played video, Windows sounds, etc today and all sounds seem to be working. But if the Digital Display Audio is not supposed to be saying "Not plugged in", I would like to get this fixed. I could not tell you if this entry in the Sound window ever had anything besides "Not plugged in" or a red down-arrow icon because I've never had need to go into that screen.
Under Sound, video and game controllers I have:
AMD High Definition Audio Device
Realtek High Definition Audio
Neither has an exclamation point icon next to it. This may be completely unrelated to my sound proble but under Network Adapters I have:
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
6TO4 Adapter
Intel(R) 82562V-2 10/100 Network Connection
All 4 "6TO4 Adapter" entries have an exclamation point icon showing.
As to your suggestion, how do I boot to the F12 partition? This is not something I have ever done before.
Hornacek
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March 17th, 2014 19:00
Ok, this red down-arrow icon in the Sound window probably has nothing to do with my recent sound problems and maybe it has always been like this. Like I said, I have never had reason to go into that Sound window before.
My sound is working since last week so hopefully whatever fixed it worked and it's not happening again.
Thanks for your help.
lockerman
2 Posts
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April 6th, 2014 15:00
I am having the same problem it started 2 days ago and it seems to come and go. As of today it will not work at all, same make and model dell computer. I tried several fixes including trying to update the intell chipset driver but only ran into another problem, I get error 40 when trying to do the update. Still working on the problems along with several others. It is my guess that they all may be related in some way but I cant seem to accomplish any fixes at this time. .
osprey4
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April 6th, 2014 17:00
Hi Lockerman:
Please go to device manager and tell me if you see any exclamation points next to your audio adapter, which would indicate a driver problem. If you do not see any problem there, please boot to the F12 partition and run the Dell diagnostics on your audio adapter. That will test it to determine if there is a hardware problem. Let me know if the diagnostics report any problems.