What could cause Sound output to suddenly go nearly silent?

[kevins_news]

I've assembled, dissasembled, and upgraded many computers over the
years so this isn't just a simple matter of forgetting to raise a
volume bar.

I put together a computer for a friend with old parts and everything
worked perfectly. (300 W power supply, duron 800, ram, pci video, pci
sound, pci 10/100 Lan, 20gig harddrive, 16x CDrom, windows XP. All
worked fine with normal volume range while using headphones and my own
speakers. I shut it down that evening.

Next morning I took this computer to her house and swapped her CDRW
for the CDROM, as well as putting in both of her harddrives on
secondary IDE channels (1Gig and 4Gig). Win XP booted up no problem
except for one thing. The sound volume is nearly nil. I tried it
with her cheapo unpowered speakers and her earbuds from her walkman.
By putting the volume to MAX you can just barely hear sound. Windows
sounds, playing mp3s, etc. At first i thought there was no sound till
i tured it up to max and happened to have my head near the speakers.
Just barely audible and moving the volume slider down makes it quiter
until it dissappears. Yes i'm using the correct volume sliders. I
made sure the speakers were plugged in securely. I tried both output
ports (the card has front and rear outputs). I went back into all the
possible audio settings just in case i had changed one, but i hadn't.
I removed the card and reinstalled it's drivers. Same problem.

So, as i said, the sound worked perfectly with my headphones one night
and 24 hours later the *only* changes made were the swapping of a
CDROM for a CDRW and addition of two harddrives. No one messed with
win XP settings or drivers between the time it worked and when i first
noticed it was quiet.

Does anyone have a possible explanation? My only thought is that the
extra power drain from adding the two harddrives is somehow draining
power from the pci sound card and making it quiet. But I can't quite
convince myself of how this could be true. The other possibility is
that both her cheapo speakers and her earbuds are bad. However the
speakers worked on her old computer just before i swapped hardware and
she says the earbuds work fine (although i didn't test them that day.)

She lives over an hour away so it's not easy for me to just sit down
and pull drives to troubleshoot. I'm going back next week to
hopefully fix it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

p.s. The sound card is an Aureal Mx300 card which has it's own issues
with windows XP but i solved those before taking the comuter to her.
This card is known to just cut out completely with windows XP but by
tweaking a register you can get it to work perfectly. That all still
works fine.

 

[Bas Ruiter]

The two things that immediately come to mind are:

(1) speakers plugged into the wrong output on the sound card,

(2) output channel is "muted" in Windows.

Both of these things could exhibit the symptoms you describe - hearing
faint sound if the volume is turned max.

 

[kevins_news]

The two things that immediately come to mind are:

(1) speakers plugged into the wrong output on the sound card,

(2) output channel is "muted" in Windows.

Both of these things could exhibit the symptoms you describe - hearing
faint sound if the volume is turned max.

For once i wish it was just my own incompetence. But unfortunatly it
isn't. Well... at least not those two suggestions.

I tried both outputs ( i even tried the line in and mic input). Both
outputs are the same. Absolutely nothing from the two inputs. And
the volume wasn't muted. I checked that.

When i said 'barely audible' i guess i should have said 'very quiet'.
There is sound coming from the output ports. It's not so low that it
seems like something leaking through a muted output. But you still
have to get your head within two feet of the speaker to hear it.

This problem is all the more frustrating since i can't go home this
evening and troubleshoot it. I won't be at her house for another
week. And i did promise to deliver a *working* computer. Never been
one to fail to deliver...

Kevin

 

[Overlord]

I liked my old MX300 card. Too bad there aren't any manufacturer's
drivers for anything recent. Had to edit the PCI registers to run it
in anything more recent than uh.... 98se I think it was. Volume was
still great in latter Wins but never really could shake the house like
before.... At least it wouldn't go 3 seconds into the first system
sound or MP3 and crap out until it was rebooted.

You moved the system, you fiddled in the case. I trust you pulled and
reseated the card?

For once i wish it was just my own incompetence. But unfortunatly it
isn't. Well... at least not those two suggestions.

I tried both outputs ( i even tried the line in and mic input). Both
outputs are the same. Absolutely nothing from the two inputs. And
the volume wasn't muted. I checked that.

When i said 'barely audible' i guess i should have said 'very quiet'.
There is sound coming from the output ports. It's not so low that it
seems like something leaking through a muted output. But you still
have to get your head within two feet of the speaker to hear it.

This problem is all the more frustrating since i can't go home this
evening and troubleshoot it. I won't be at her house for another
week. And i did promise to deliver a *working* computer. Never been
one to fail to deliver...

Kevin

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[kevins_news]

I liked my old MX300 card. Too bad there aren't any manufacturer's
drivers for anything recent. Had to edit the PCI registers to run it
in anything more recent than uh.... 98se I think it was. Volume was
still great in latter Wins but never really could shake the house like
before.... At least it wouldn't go 3 seconds into the first system
sound or MP3 and crap out until it was rebooted.

You moved the system, you fiddled in the case. I trust you pulled and
reseated the card?

Yeah. I did. Same problem. I could have accepted never getting the
card to work in the first place. But i can't for the life of me
understand how moving the system and adding a couple harddrives could
do this to my sound.


As an aside note:
If you want to attemt to get surround sound and A3D working in windows
XP with an MX300 i found a great page with hacked drivers and all the
information you need to try it.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chris.day/download/aureal.htm

The only thing i used off these pages was the register fix to make the
card work at all in windows xp (yeah, the 3 seconds of sound before
crapping out).

Kevin

For once i wish it was just my own incompetence. But unfortunatly it
isn't. Well... at least not those two suggestions.

I tried both outputs ( i even tried the line in and mic input). Both
outputs are the same. Absolutely nothing from the two inputs. And
the volume wasn't muted. I checked that.

When i said 'barely audible' i guess i should have said 'very quiet'.
There is sound coming from the output ports. It's not so low that it
seems like something leaking through a muted output. But you still
have to get your head within two feet of the speaker to hear it.

This problem is all the more frustrating since i can't go home this
evening and troubleshoot it. I won't be at her house for another
week. And i did promise to deliver a *working* computer. Never been
one to fail to deliver...

Kevin

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[Shep©]

I've assembled, dissasembled, and upgraded many computers over the
years so this isn't just a simple matter of forgetting to raise a
volume bar.

I put together a computer for a friend with old parts and everything
worked perfectly. (300 W power supply, duron 800, ram, pci video, pci
sound, pci 10/100 Lan, 20gig harddrive, 16x CDrom, windows XP. All
worked fine with normal volume range while using headphones and my own
speakers. I shut it down that evening.

Next morning I took this computer to her house and swapped her CDRW
for the CDROM, as well as putting in both of her harddrives on
secondary IDE channels (1Gig and 4Gig). Win XP booted up no problem
except for one thing. The sound volume is nearly nil. I tried it
with her cheapo unpowered speakers and her earbuds from her walkman.
By putting the volume to MAX you can just barely hear sound. Windows
sounds, playing mp3s, etc. At first i thought there was no sound till
i tured it up to max and happened to have my head near the speakers.
Just barely audible and moving the volume slider down makes it quiter
until it dissappears. Yes i'm using the correct volume sliders. I
made sure the speakers were plugged in securely. I tried both output
ports (the card has front and rear outputs). I went back into all the
possible audio settings just in case i had changed one, but i hadn't.
I removed the card and reinstalled it's drivers. Same problem.

So, as i said, the sound worked perfectly with my headphones one night
and 24 hours later the *only* changes made were the swapping of a
CDROM for a CDRW and addition of two harddrives. No one messed with
win XP settings or drivers between the time it worked and when i first
noticed it was quiet.

Does anyone have a possible explanation? My only thought is that the
extra power drain from adding the two harddrives is somehow draining
power from the pci sound card and making it quiet. But I can't quite
convince myself of how this could be true. The other possibility is
that both her cheapo speakers and her earbuds are bad. However the
speakers worked on her old computer just before i swapped hardware and
she says the earbuds work fine (although i didn't test them that day.)

She lives over an hour away so it's not easy for me to just sit down
and pull drives to troubleshoot. I'm going back next week to
hopefully fix it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

p.s. The sound card is an Aureal Mx300 card which has it's own issues
with windows XP but i solved those before taking the comuter to her.
This card is known to just cut out completely with windows XP but by
tweaking a register you can get it to work perfectly. That all still
works fine.

Are your headphones low impedence/high sensitivity?



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[DaveW]

Sounds like either a corrupt sound card driver or a failed soundcard.

 

[PWY]

Are your headphones low impedence/high sensitivity?

You will need powered speakers. Aren't the speakers that worked powered
speakers ?

 

[kevins_news]

You will need powered speakers. Aren't the speakers that worked powered
speakers ?

I thought about this afterwards. It does almost seem like a line level
output that needs to be amplified. My speakers that worked with the
system are powered. And when this soundcard was my primary soundcard,
i was using these same powered speakers. And these same headphones
actually. My headphones are over-the-ear full headphones. Probably
cost me $60 Canadian. Her speakers were little 3 inch cubes and non
powered. The earbuds were about as cheap a pair as you could possibly
get.

I know a general amount about speakers and amplifiers but I don't know
anything about headphones. Is it possible that my headphones are
somehow sensitive (low impedence/high sensitivity) enough to amplify
the sound coming out of the sound card? Yet her cheap earbuds aren't?
With headphones i always thought that if one pair worked, any pair
would. If this is actually a fact, and not just an off the wall
suggestion, then it could be right on the money.

It also seems silly that this sound card would *require* either high
sensitivy headphones or powered speakers.

Well.. it's another thing for me to try. i'll make sure i take my
headphones that i know work on the card with me when i go
troubleshoot.

Thanks.

 

[Overlord]

Yeah. I did. Same problem. I could have accepted never getting the
card to work in the first place. But i can't for the life of me
understand how moving the system and adding a couple harddrives could
do this to my sound.

Hmmm.... seems I recall that the original drivers had.... options....
Like setting the card to run certain types of speakers or headphones
on specifically either of the output jacks, testing each speaker
individually, stuff like that. I'd be more helpful but my latest mb
has onboard sound that's pretty decent so ....
Ahhh, just took a look, my son is 7 and I forgot I have an MX300 in
his system. You might take a look at the settings.
You can't set one of the output jacks to headphones unless and until
you actually have headphones plugged in.

Also, the output from the MX300 HAS to have powered speakers to work.
First one I ever ran was for shit on volume and I couldn't figure it
out until I went to powered (amplified) speakers. Your problem sounds
a lot like that.

As an aside note:
If you want to attemt to get surround sound and A3D working in windows
XP with an MX300 i found a great page with hacked drivers and all the
information you need to try it.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chris.day/download/aureal.htm

The only thing i used off these pages was the register fix to make the
card work at all in windows xp (yeah, the 3 seconds of sound before
crapping out).

Yeah, that's the one! Tried XP once upon a time but didn't like it.
Besides it was doing some strange things.... like I would do a search
and specify the drive. It would search the drive, every one of 8
other drives in the system..... down the wire to 3 other systems on
the LAN.... It wanted to take a look at every system in the house
multiple times. It would search for hours finding the same files over
and over and over....."and it will not stop, Ever!".
Didn't like that.....
Had some other glitches with it and ditched it for 2K again.

I did bookmark the post in case I ever think XP is sane now, thanks.

Kevin

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[kevins_news]

Hmmm.... seems I recall that the original drivers had.... options....
Like setting the card to run certain types of speakers or headphones
on specifically either of the output jacks, testing each speaker
individually, stuff like that. I'd be more helpful but my latest mb
has onboard sound that's pretty decent so ....
Ahhh, just took a look, my son is 7 and I forgot I have an MX300 in
his system. You might take a look at the settings.
You can't set one of the output jacks to headphones unless and until
you actually have headphones plugged in.

Also, the output from the MX300 HAS to have powered speakers to work.
First one I ever ran was for shit on volume and I couldn't figure it
out until I went to powered (amplified) speakers. Your problem sounds
a lot like that.

Woah there! IF that's true then that is exactly my problem. MX300
requires powered speakers. But why do my headphones work? Aren't they
just unpowered speakers? Or, as someone else suggested, are they
somehow super sensitive and manage to amplify the signal wheras my
fiiends cheap earbuds were not able to?

Or does switching the output to 'headphone' mode solve this problem?
If i plug in cheap earbuds, then switch the output mode to 'headphone'
will it then send out a much louder signal? I've never bothered
switching these modes since on my own computer (onboard sound) i just
leave it on 'desktop speaker' mode and swap my expensive headphones
and powered speakers back and fourth with no problem.

Thanks for the tips. i'll take along my powered speakers when i go
troubleshoot. If what you say is true, then i might have found the
problem.

Kevin

 

[Shep©]

Woah there! IF that's true then that is exactly my problem. MX300
requires powered speakers. But why do my headphones work? Aren't they
just unpowered speakers? Or, as someone else suggested, are they
somehow super sensitive and manage to amplify the signal wheras my
fiiends cheap earbuds were not able to?

Or does switching the output to 'headphone' mode solve this problem?
If i plug in cheap earbuds, then switch the output mode to 'headphone'
will it then send out a much louder signal? I've never bothered
switching these modes since on my own computer (onboard sound) i just
leave it on 'desktop speaker' mode and swap my expensive headphones
and powered speakers back and fourth with no problem.

Thanks for the tips. i'll take along my powered speakers when i go
troubleshoot. If what you say is true, then i might have found the
problem.

Kevin

As I asked.Your headphones are most likely low impedance high
sensitivity like mine.Most PC sound cards only give a line output so
they require powered speakers.My PC speakers also have a headphone
jack which of course is powered.

HTH



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[kevins_news]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:25:42 GMT, Knowing that it was a Hollywood
invention that lemmings jump off cliffs kevins_news


As I asked.Your headphones are most likely low impedance high
sensitivity like mine.Most PC sound cards only give a line output so
they require powered speakers.My PC speakers also have a headphone
jack which of course is powered.

HTH

It's all falling into place. Now that i actually think about it, that
is one of my gripes about my headphones on my system. I have to set
the windows volume to near minimum to use my headphones. And even
then i usually end up turning the in-game volume controls down. So
that's why the system sounded fine with my headphones. they are high
sensitivity.

So is buying powered speakers the only solution? What about changing
the sound output to 'headphone' mode? control panel -> sound and
audio -> speaker settings -> advanced. Should that amplify the signal
so that regular headphones (and even her unpowered speakers) would
have reasonable volume? If not, what does the 'headphone' mode do?

I'll bet that changing the output to 'headphone' mode does do what i
want. But because of Murphy's Law, the MX300 sound card won't be
compatable with setting that through the Win XP control panel. I'd
have to use the specific Aureal audio control panel to do it. The
reason this is a problem is because the Aureal audio control panel is
only compatable with windows 98SE and earlier. Not compatable with
Win XP.

 

[Overlord]

Woah there! IF that's true then that is exactly my problem. MX300
requires powered speakers. But why do my headphones work? Aren't they
just unpowered speakers? Or, as someone else suggested, are they
somehow super sensitive and manage to amplify the signal wheras my
fiiends cheap earbuds were not able to?

Or does switching the output to 'headphone' mode solve this problem?
If i plug in cheap earbuds, then switch the output mode to 'headphone'
will it then send out a much louder signal? I've never bothered
switching these modes since on my own computer (onboard sound) i just
leave it on 'desktop speaker' mode and swap my expensive headphones
and powered speakers back and fourth with no problem.

Thanks for the tips. i'll take along my powered speakers when i go
troubleshoot. If what you say is true, then i might have found the
problem.

Lessee..... First, if you ain't got powered speakers, you're not hearing squat off that card,
at least not on an output configured for speakers.
I'm pretty sure... yeah damn sure that I've run headphones and a boom mike on that card
too with no problems. Of course I ran 4 mean speakers and a subwoofer too<G>.
On the back of the card there are, of course, 2 output jacks for the quad speaker config.
One of the jacks has a standard sound output symbol while the other has a headphone
icon next to it. Of course you can/could config that output for speakers in the utils too.
Might make a difference which one you plug the headphones into especially
since you can't load the Utils/A3D stuff in XP.
I do remember maxxing out Everything and barely getting a whisper from unpowered speakers tho.
For all I know you might have nice moving coil headphones with great rare earth magnets in 'em.
Or you might be plugged her cheap earbuds into the speaker output with the headphones - IF that
makes a difference. In any case, you should be able to run headphones on it but powered speakers
are the only kind that are going to make a noise off that card in the actual speaker department.

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[JAD]

did you run the analog cable from the sound card to the CDRW? and was that pinout correctly wired for the card?

 

[kevins_news]

did you run the analog cable from the sound card to the CDRW? and was that pinout correctly wired for the card?

No i didn't run that cable yet. I was going to after i made sure
everything was working.

Why? could running that cable incorrectly cause problems with windows
sounds?

Kevin

 

[Shep©]

It's all falling into place. Now that i actually think about it, that
is one of my gripes about my headphones on my system. I have to set
the windows volume to near minimum to use my headphones. And even
then i usually end up turning the in-game volume controls down. So
that's why the system sounded fine with my headphones. they are high
sensitivity.

So is buying powered speakers the only solution? What about changing
the sound output to 'headphone' mode? control panel -> sound and
audio -> speaker settings -> advanced. Should that amplify the signal
so that regular headphones (and even her unpowered speakers) would
have reasonable volume? If not, what does the 'headphone' mode do?

You can get a cheap set of powered speakers from,"Staples" office
superstores.



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[JAD]

only if the pinouts are not properly set for the sound card....eg if the ground is where the right + should be

 

[????]

For engineering approach, my feeling is:

The powered/nonpowered speaker most likely are not the issue, since both
should work, I have never heard that a sound card only works with powered
speakers.

The audio line from CD-ROM to sound card is only important if you play
regular music CD, (.aka type of file), not apply to mp3 or wav type of file.
I don't now what kind of musical file you are testing with.

Her speaker and the audio line to the speaker could be bad too, that
happened to me once and wasted me 4 hours.

The best way to test is use the "line out" from the sound card, (not the
speaker out), buy a new line (stereo to RCA), connect the sound card to her
amplifier/receiver system, that way you can test either music CD or mp3, and
forget about her cheap PC speakers.

 

[????]

The powered/nonpowered speaker most likely are not the issue, since both
should work, I have never heard that a sound card only works with powered
speakers.

The audio line from CD-ROM to sound card is only important if you play
regular music CD, (.cda type of file), not apply to mp3 or wav type of file.
I don't now what kind of musical file you are testing with.

Her speaker and the audio line to the speaker could be bad too, that
happened to me once and wasted me 4 hours.

The best way to test is use the "line out" from the sound card, (not the
speaker out), buy a new line (stereo to RCA), connect the sound card to her
amplifier/receiver system, that way you can test either music CD or mp3, and
forget about her cheap PC speakers.