Bad Sound

[Garrryson]

I have had a problem with my sound card for about the past six months on what is now my old laptop.

When any sound is played through it, the sound coming through is very interrupted and unusable. I have tried plugging in external speakers to make sure it is not the laptops internal speakers but there was no change. I have also re-installed the sound card drivers off the vendors website with no effect. I would just get rid of the laptop as I have recently bought a new one but my girlfriend wants it so it needs fixing.

thanks in advance.

[Gatto]

Hi Garrryson,

Since you're not going to use the laptop anymore, have you tried restoring (assuming XP/Vista) to a point before the problem occurred?

What is the make and model number of the soundcard?

Cheers,
G

[Chris]

If the restore doesn't work, then chances are it wont be a software problem but a hardware problem.

When you say interrupted, is it just a stuttered playback or are there statics sounds along with what should be played?

[Garrryson]

thanks for your reply guys. I cannot reinstall XP because there are programs and files on there that my partner would like to keep. The sound is stuttered and the PC becomes rediculously slow when I do anything that uses the soundcard. The soundcard is integrated. I do not know the motherboard model but the model of the PC is a fujitsu-siemens L1300.

[Gatto]

If the PC is slowing down when you try to run sounds, that means that its definately a software problem most likely due to bad drivers (which you replaced, so doubtful in this case) or a hidden virus or after effects of the virus. Even if it had been removed, its damage might still be there.

If you don't want to reinstall from scratch, you'll need to do a system restore. It would revert your computer to a previously saved configuration. It doesn't wipe documents, just undoes changes made to the system - ie some programmes installed in the last 6 months and will repair virus damage.

If you don't want to reformat then a restore is the best way to keep the documents and most programmes without too much hassle.

The best way to confirm the software issue though, without doing the restore, is to boot into a livecd version of linux (you can download and burn these) or boot up from your Windows CD (if you have one) and then play an MP3. I'm not sure if booting into Safe Mode (press F8 repeatedly when starting up) will allow you to this, but it couldn't hurt to try.

I will continue to look for a better solution in case this doesn't work!

G

[Foxxy]

Interesting one...

I have an Acer TravelMate 4200 series. It has XP Pro. Soon after I got it, it started doing the same thing. Only, my problem was linked to the mouse pad. When I left it playing on my home entertainment system, it would sometimes "jam"... the sound would "stutter" as you say. As soon as I touched or kept moving the mouse, it would be fine. I was worried there was a serious problem and nearly sent it back as this started a month after I got it.

It turns out, it was the BIOS. A friend of mine said I should flash the BIOS and do a defrag or something. So I got some help with the BIOS as I didn't even know what BIOS was! I did this and did this defrag thing and that was the end of it! Only part I didn't enjoy, was waiting for the defrag thing... it took ages! There must be better products on the market than the MS one.

Give it a shot!