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danielleb24

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February 1st, 2008 01:00

Help! My internal and external speakers don't work on my laptop!!!

About 3 weeks ago, I accidentely gave a static shock to the headphones that were pluged-in my Inspiron 5150 laptop. Since then my internal speakers don't work. I have tried numerous things to get my speakers to work but nothing works. My computer says that my soundcard is activated and my volume is not mute. I've just bought external speakers to test if they would work but they don't. The speakers are good since the work on my mp3 player.
 
The only thing I've notice is that in my Volume Control the setting for PC Speakers is unactivad and I can't activate it.
 
Does anyone know what I can do or know what is wrong with my laptop. I don't want to spend a lot of money to fix this laptop but I would love some sound. If anyone can tell me if the problem is with my headphone jack, soundcard or anything else PLEASE HELP ME!!! 

Jim Coates

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13.6K Posts

February 1st, 2008 11:00

To check for defective hardware on the motherboard, run Dell Diagnostics interactive audio test. To run Diagnostics restart the computer and as soon as it starts to boot up hold down f12. Select 'Diagnostic' from the boot menu. The computer will run its pre-boot assessment tests for 3 or 4 minutes before the Dell Diagnostic starts. These pre-boot tests play some beeps and tones through the system speaker but this doesn't test the rest of the audio hardware, so you still need to let Dell Diagnostics run after the pre-boot tests finish. Dell Diagnostics plays an instrumental piece of music complete with drums, so if you only hear some tones then you have only run the pre-boot assessment test.

When Dell Diagnostics opens, select 'custom', then the audio test. This will test your audio system independently of Windows and drivers, meaning it doesn't matter if they are working correctly or not. Alternate between using headphones and listening to speakers in case only one is working.

[If you have ever reformatted your hard drive then the Diagnostics partition might have been wiped off. If the Dell Diagnostics option fails to open, run it from the Drivers and Utilities (Resource) CD if you have one.]

Dell Diagnostics will play some audio and ask you whether you heard it. If you answer 'no' then the test generates an error code that means you indicated you did not hear the sounds it played, but it doesn't and cannot pinpoint the exact component that has gone bad. There are no user replaceable components in your audio system so if it is a hardware problem and the warranty has expired the workaround solution is to get an external sound card.

If you do hear the audio that means the hardware is okay but there is a problem with the software or configuration.

Jim

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