No sound Emachines t3100

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Hello. I recently formatted and restored (using the factory restore disks) an emachines t3100, running Windows ME, and now I'm getting no sound. There has not been any sound at any point since it was formatted. The soundcard appears to be a Realtek AC'97, although I don't think it's a problem with the card itself.

I'm using a compaq monitor (fs740) from a Compaq Presario 5000us with speakers mounted on the side.

So here's the situation.

The drivers, I assume, are correct and installed properly, as I used the factory restore disks and all of the hardware, except for the monitor and speakers, are precisely what came with it.

Everything appears to be installed properly in the device manager. There are no resource conflicts.

When I try to play a sound, whatever the sound is, the sound appears to play with no error messages. And when I try to play a sound in sound recorder, for example, the state of the wave on the screen changes as if the sound is indeed being played properly.

I have hooked these speakers up every way possible. On the back of this machine, there is one line out jack for the speakers and one for a mic. I tried plugging the speaker wire into both just for laughs to no avail.

The speakers are getting power, as they hum and the power light on the side of the right speaker lights up when you turn them on.

I have tested a second known-good set of speakers on this machine as well, which also produce no sound.

I know my computer (a different one from the one having the problem) has an integrated realtek soundcard, and it has jack retasking, and I have to configure which jack does what (line out, line in, etc) using a program that came with it before it will actually produce sound through the speakers.

I wondered if I couldn't have similar situation here...But I didn't see any soundcard-specific software on the machine anywhere, and the only options I saw in the advanced audio properties was something to configure what speaker set up you had...But none of the options made any difference...And actually, the only difference I did notice was that some of the options seemed to make adjustments to the volume control.

I also checked to see if there were any relevant options in the BIOS (Phoenix bios version something or other), and there were not. None that related to sound, anyway.

Oh, and naturally I checked to make sure that the volume was turned up in the volume control and nothing was muted.

So....Yeah, I'm kinda lost ;-). Sounds appear to be playing, but I'm getting no output. I'm wondering if the audio ports couldn't be shot...But that just seems really unlikely. I had the cover off of it a little while back and I didn't look really closely, but the connections from the jacks to the board seemed to be intact. But I don't know.

Another thing I've wondered is if it's possible I have to install the proper drivers for this monitor, since the speakers and monitor came as a package? That just doesn't make any sense, though, as the soundcard and the monitor would have seperate drivers regardless, and I get the same response (no sound) using different speakers.

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
go to the control panel -> sounds and audio devices
see if you have the right sound card selected for playback and recording

also, go to start -> run -> services.msc
see if "Windows Audio" is set to automatic

If that doesn't work, go to start -> run -> sndvol32
make sure it isn't turned all the way down, or muted
 
Thank you for the suggestions. I'm running ME, however, so the services.msc option doesn't work for me. Nor is anything muted.
I threw an ubuntu live cd in here the other night to see if I'd be be able to get sound under a different OS, only to find that this computers specs are too low to run it.

So then I tried xubuntu, which this computer will run, but it hangs on "Uncompressing Linux...Ok, booting the kernal."

I've been getting really, really sick of this problem, as it fails to make any sense to me at all. I have three posts going about it in three different forums and it appears that I've also more or less stumped the net.

So I decided to take the cover off and take a really close look at the ports and at the board...And I think I've discovered what the problem is.

A large chip close to the audio ports (the only one close to the audio ports) has a large, triangle-shaped hunk broken out of it. I have no idea how it happened...I can only assume there was some manner of manufacturing defect that, due to heat or vibration or some such caused it to give way.

The integrated sound itself is working however, which I know from tests in dxdiag, the fact that it plays sounds without error messages, etc...So I don't know what this chip does, and you can't read all of what was written on it since some of the text went with the broken piece...But nothing else makes any sense, I have no idea what else to try or how to try it, and I haven't found any meaningful information on the net.

So that's that. Time to break down and invest in the cheapest pci soundcard on Earth. Thank you for your assistance.
 
Before buying a soundcard; try other speakers, or try those speakers on another audio source. Even some garage sale $2 speakers would work.

If you were to get a sound card; they're pretty cheap, and you don't need the 5.1 stuff from what I hear.

If you want a CHEAP card, that will do the basics, listen to music and games, than this would be good enough.
http://cgi.ebay.com/A-Open-AW840-Co...57QQihZ002QQcategoryZ3701QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

*I chose EBay for the Buy It Now price, it's only $4 :D
 
I tried another pair of known good speakers on this computer after the problem started...Same deal. No go on headphones, either.

Thanks for the link. It's already sold, but that's cool. Found a very similarly priced card on pricewatch...'Bout $8 with free shipping.

It's not really up to me ultimately, though. I've been looking at this for someone else. I'm not sure if he'll prefer to drop the $8 on a soundcard, or use a nearly identical system he has with working sound and drop down to Windows 98...I honestly don't see that big of a difference between ME and 98 anyway, myself, ME basically just being an upgraded 98.

We'll see I guess.
 
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