Sound hardware died

[zyphodb]

Hi there,

looking for some advice, my sound has died on my hp desktop, it doesn't seem to have a dedicated sound card, just a built in one which seems to have failed, I normally use a HDMI lead which plugs into a nvidiia graphics card & the sound on my HD TV but nothing happens now, go into sound in the control panel & I can't change the default program, troubleshoot & it says that the hardware is disabled. My main question is can I solve this by buying a PCI slot plug & play sound card or is it likely to be something more complicated? I've updated all drivers, still doesn't work. I've also tried rolling them back still nothing, any thoughts anyone?

[dave_boo]

Have you went into the device manager and tried to re-enable it? You can right click on "My Computer" ("This computer" in Windows 8) and choose properties. Go to "Device Manager" and right click->enable the device. Hope that works for you.

[Chicog]

Is there any diagnostic software that came with your HP? If not, tell us the model and I'm sure someone can find it.

Otherwise I would start by removing the driver and uninstalling it completely. Then power off and back on and see if it gets re-detected (yes, I know, I just invented a word )

[zyphodb]

Tried your uninstall/reinstall Idea Chicog, & it reinstalled on startup but still never worked.. Thanks for the thought Dave, tried that... nope..

I have 3 devices that come up in 'sounds' from the control panel, (I'm on windows 7 BTW) No 1 is LG TV invidia high def audio, which it's defaulting to. Then I have Nvidia HDMI output port 1 which says 'not plugged in' & the third 1 is Speakers, realtec high def audio, which says 'not plugged in'. I have no speakers on this system, just using the ones on the LG TV. But the mystifying thing is the Nvidia HDMI output didn't say not plugged in before & I've been able to switch the default off & use the other for Skyping but now I'm unable to in sounds.. I can disable the devices in device manager but as right now the default device turns up disabled when I go into sounds from the task bar. I have a Invidia PCI slotted graphics card with the HDMI slot but I don't think it's this as I can't get headphones or speakers to work either when I use the device bypassing the graphics card... I know I can probably find & d/l software from HP to indentify the problem which may or may not work but what I would really like to know, (apart from someone coming up with the solution of course) is if I buy a plug & play PCI slot sound card could I just fit it & it would over ride the other built in sound devices & allow me to listen from my TV speakers again, or at worst allow me to plug some speakers in & use the headphone socket as well...

I've checked the TV speakers & the HDMI lead, all ok...

[Chicog]

Well you can actually buy USB devices that will give you 7.1 sound, probably easier than faffing about with a PCI Card (which will work as well though).

But unless you're seeing an error I'm still not convinced that your current hardware is irretrievably broken. Sure it's not a loose connect, maybe a port that's come loose?

Tried a pair of headphones and enabling/disabling the different options?

[russ1]

Also try another HDMI cable.

[Gregory Morozov]

One of your LG TV HDMI ports can be video only, try another.

[aarn]

Some other things worth trying - go to Control Panel then Sound (or whatever), just check that volume not turned off.

Do you have an mp3 player plugged in (recharging whatever)? Sometimes microsoft will chose it as default sound output.

Try twiddling the connections from laptop to monitor - maybe a corroded spot on the contacts.

Try everything (except dousing your equipment in petroleum and lighting, or throwing into the nearest river)

and be prepared to be effusive with laudatory expletives.

All such measures will work towards a remedy for your (transient) discombobulation.

At least, this is my experience. AA

[zyphodb]

Tried it all going to take it to a shop later in the week I think, see what they'll come up with...