Laptop without sound and no apparent software problem

Rudiger · 1 Jun 2008 at 18:45

Hi,
The sound suddenly disappeared on my old Dell Inspiron 1200 laptop recently. There is no sound from either the onboard speakers or from the headphone socket, though device manager says there's no problem.
It has a SigmaTel onboard audio chip like most Dell laptops. Having reinstalled the drivers, installed new drivers, reinstalled Windows XP, and finally wiped the whole system and reinstalled everything from scratch I think I've eradicated the possibility of a software problem.
Since the warranty's done and I don't want to pay someone to fix something which could be relatively simple I opened it up to see if the problem was obvious, like a loose cable or some such, but to no avail.
If anyone has any idea as to how to fix this I'd be very grateful as living without all the music and videos I have on my laptop is getting annoying

Thanks.

HighlandeR · 1 Jun 2008 at 19:41

Gonna sound crazy but its not the volume knob on the side ?

Sometimes its fn (function) and another button u gotta press to increase volume.

I know sometimes that speakers can die but there shouldnt really have been any issue with the headphone socket not unless the sound chipset has just died.

Also in bios during bootup reset the defaults just in case.

Id also re-download the drivers directly from dell just in case... never hurts.

If none of the above works id suggest a cheap pcmcia sound card for the laptop or one of those fleabay usb sound sticks u get for about a tenner and they just plug into the usb and provide sound thru its headphone out.

Some work arounds at least

Rudiger · 2 Jun 2008 at 14:12

cheers, don't have a volume knob but tried the fn+volume buttons

got the newest drivers from dell, and loaded the bios defaults, still nothing.

probably just have to get an external sound sound card, been looking at getting a surround sound set of speakers anyway.

the thing that confuses me is that if the sound chip'd just died, surely it'd say something in the device manager? maybe not, it's never told me when old hard drives or cd drives on my desktop system have started to fail

Rudiger · 2 Jun 2008 at 17:16

another question i just though of actually, is whether there's any point sending it off to dell to see if they can fix it? the wee sound sticks are really cheap, but i suppose they'd be quite prone to breaking, especially as i've used and broken wifi adapters that just plug straight in the usb ports. would it be easily fixed or would it require a whole new motherboard and thus be too expensive to bother with?
ta.

HighlandeR · 3 Jun 2008 at 01:07

Ive seen few lappys where the sounds just dead, even with the correct drivers loaded sometimes its just that way... the sound chip is always on the mobo so id suggest not to send it off cos thats the most expensive part to replace...

The sound sticks are pretty prone not unless u can put it on the back usb port. Otherwise id advise just get the pmcia sound card and just slot it in that way it doesnt quite fall or come out so easily.

Thats the most cost effective and quickest fix