Techie help - sound problems with laptop

[NWFlyer 2]

So I got me a new laptop yesterday.

Tonight I bought headphones so I can play some DVDs on it. Tried playing a DVD, realized I needed a DVD decoder. Cool, got one, now I'm playing the DVD... but no sound.

I ran the Windows XP sound troubleshooter and can't figure out why I'm gettin' no sound. No system sounds, no sounds from the DVD, nothin'.

Thoughts from the techno-heads? (Trying to avoid calling the help desk at work saying "Uh, yeah, I can't hear my DVD").

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[billvon 3,120]

Settings-> Control Panel
Choose Sounds and Audio Devices
Choose Volume tab
Make sure Mute is not checked
Click on Advanced, make sure sliders are up somewhat

Now check the lower right corner. You should see a little speaker symbol. It should not have a red bar through it; if it does, it's still muted.

Now go back to the laptop. There should be speaker symbols somewhere on the keyboard; these are activated by pushing one of the function keys and the speaker-symbol key at the same time. This is a secondary way of controlling volume. Press up volume until it's about halfway. (Older laptops have an actual volume dial on the case; check for this also.)

[NWFlyer 2]

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here should be speaker symbols somewhere on the keyboard;

Fuuuuuuck... it was that easy! I had checked every damned setting on the machine. Little did I know...

Thanks Bill.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[NWFlyer 2]

Okay, so now I'm in the airport trying to watch another of the DVDs that I brought. I'm back to where I was yesterday... no sound. Except that now I can hear system sounds and I can get windows media player to play audio files (so at least this time I know that my system volume is on. ).

Thoughts? Argh!

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[Remster 30]

Did it work at all last time?

Are you sure you are using the same DVD player SW? I know I had probblems with sound on my old lappy with one of the SW.

Remster

[NWFlyer 2]

Yup, I did get it to work no problem yesterday. (Of course, I already mailed that particular DVD back to netflix, but I have three others, none of which work so I doubt it's that...).

Hmmm... now that I'm online maybe I'll see if the software I downloaded yesterday has any tips.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[NWFlyer 2]

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Did it work at all last time?

Are you sure you are using the same DVD player SW? I know I had probblems with sound on my old lappy with one of the SW.

Redownloaded and reinstalled the software. Not helping the problem.

[shropshire 0]

Did you try ..
Control Panel

Device volumn - Advanced
Check all sliders are at least part way up

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[NWFlyer 2]

Yup, I have tried every system setting possible. The frustration is that the only thing that doesn't appear to work is DVD audio. I can play streaming video, mp3, etc., and get sound... just not DVD.

[70sdiver 0]

did you check the volume in the dvd playser itself.

[NWFlyer 2]

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did you check the volume in the dvd playser itself.

Yep. I let my friend's techie husband try to fix it this weekend and he was stumpted.

The latest is that there's something with the software combination I'm using (Windows Media Player with a CyberLink DVD encoder on top of it). That combo worked when I first downloaded it, but didn't work the next day.

I downloaded a free trial of another DVD software, and it works perfectly, so at least now I know it's something with the software. So, at least I've got something to watch on for the time being (which will be nice on my 6 hour flight tomorrow night, though I only have enough battery juice for one movie, since I don't have my second battery yet).