Sound not working

[wicketr]

I have a friend's Dimension 8250 that I'm trying to fix. The sound
used to work on it fine but recently stopped. On bootup however, the
windows startup sound DOES work as well as the windows shutdown sound.
But, when a user is actually logged in no sound can be heard through
any application. So that tells me that the speakers work and that
there doesn't seem to be a hardware problem.

I've checked all the volume settings and made sure nothing (as far as
I can find) is set to 'mute'. Also, if you adjust the volume the only
thing that happens is a System Beep.

I've tried reinstalling the SoundMAX drivers from Dell and that didn't
seem to resolve the problem. There seems to be some sort of property
or setting in Windows that is causing this and I can't find it. Anyone
have any pointers?

 

[Guest]

As a user, go to start/run, and type
sndrec32 /play /close %windir%/media/ding.wav
(and whatever sound file names that are failing)
If that fails, you probably have corrupt sound files.
To repair all system files, go to Start/Run, and type: SFC /SCANNOW

 

[wicketr]

I'll try this when I get home, but I don't think it's corrupt media
files. This is also a problem for songs, or videos that she gets in
emails. This is much more widespread.

Some driver or whatever (registry?) is enacted when the user logs in
and causes the sound to cease working.

Also, when looking at the Sound settings, the SoundMAX option for
sound output is there, so it's not like it isn't installed. And
nothing wrong appears in Device Manager.

I found this other link which may help with the "Ding Fix" registry
setting. What do you think?
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...657a43a281c/6315a8a51084aa26#6315a8a51084aa26