Moved computer, now no sound/speaker jack does not make "bzz" noise

A

alg

New Member
Story:
I was working inside my computer case, it was laying on its side on a chair while I did this. Put the case cover back on, there was sound. When I got home, I turned the computer off and moved the tower from the chair to the ground/desk slot it goes in... no sound after moving it.

Details:
1. I have 2 sound cards/2 ports. 1 is a dedicated sound card, with the port in the rear. 1 is on-board sound (I think), with a "headphone" front-panel port. The rear port is where I kept my speakers plugged in.
2. The front port always worked even though the dedicated sound card would be configured as the primary and even if it had a set of speakers plugged into it. Now, neither port produces sound (tried headphones for front port, even though speakers used to work there despite it being a "headphone" port).
3. Per the title: I don't know why but speaker jacks have always produced a "bzz" noise when touching whatever material the back of cases commonly are. NOW, the speaker jack produces no bzz.

4. I was gentle putting the tower down from the chair to the floor, but admittedly not when scooting the tower back into the desk.

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Reasons for it being a speaker problem: Speaker's jack produces no bzz noise. See #3 above. (The speakers are on as there's an indicator light on them, I've also tried plugging the power adapter thing into a different outlet - no luck.) Also, see #4 - can see that destroying the speaker cord I guess.
Reasons for it being a computer issue: See #2. If I damaged the speakers/the port where the speaker was hooked in... why doesn't the front, totally-different-sound-source, port work now?

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Windows says my sound card is working fine. (Control Panel -> Sound andwhateverit'scalled)
 
You only have one sound card which is on board. The front panel connector is plugged into the motherboard which in turns goes to the on board sound chip. Its possible it has been hit with electrical static discharge. Try resetting the cmos and see that brings it back to life. If not, then you will be forced to buy a dedicated sound card.
 
johnb35 said:
You only have one sound card which is on board. The front panel connector is plugged into the motherboard which in turns goes to the on board sound chip. Its possible it has been hit with electrical static discharge. Try resetting the cmos and see that brings it back to life. If not, then you will be forced to buy a dedicated sound card.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

I do have a dedicated sound card. The dedicated sound card is where the speakers/speaker jack was plugged into (rear panel). After the speakers stopped working and I noticed the jack produced no bzz, I tried plugging some headphones into the front panel headphones/audio/whatever port, which I understand to be on-board sound. No sound there either.

It is possible electric static killed both the on-board sound and the dedicated sound card (I guess, if dedicated sound cards can be killed in such a manner). But this doesn't explain the speaker jack no longer producing any bzz at all, as far as my limited knowledge knows.

I will attempt to clear the CMOS through the BIOS. I'll report back.

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Edit:. I do not think I 'reset' my CMOS through my BIOS. I'll have to decide if I want to try hard resetting it as the hardware maintenance I just performed mentioned in this topic resulted in killing my HD which had everything but the OSes and a few programs - so I'm scared to open it again (the case had been closed and sound worked fine sitting on a chair, so it's not like I just had some major single electric shock mishap killing my HD and sound card). Also building a new PC soonish, so it's not as though I will be without sound forever if I don't fix this here.

The lack of bzz on the speaker jack has to mean something. I haven't tried using the headphones in that back port, but unless I did kill the on-board sound then the headphones not working on the front port is why I thought maybe all sound period, somehow, was dead.
 
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Are the sound ports on the rear of the pc by themselves or are they located in the I/O plate for the motherboard? If they are by themselves then you have a dedicated card, which will be installed in a pci slot on the motherboard.
 
johnb35 said:
Are the sound ports on the rear of the pc by themselves or are they located in the I/O plate for the motherboard? If they are by themselves then you have a dedicated card, which will be installed in a pci slot on the motherboard.
Click to expand...

By themselves, I myself installed a dedicated sound card years ago.

I just tried plugging my headphones into the back panel/dedicated sound card speaker port - assuming headphones/speakers will work the same, never tried - and... no sound. I do know the headphones work.

Thanks for the help. Since I am building a new PC soonish, I'm just going to consider this a loss.

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If anyone has any ideas for what could have gone wrong from simple putting a tower from a chair to the ground and pulling the speaker cord in a not-very-gentle way underneath the tower as I was scooting it back into the desk, or what it means if the speaker jack is no longer producing a bzz sound, I maintain curiosity.
 
If you have a dedicated card then go into control panel, sounds and make sure you have the output selected for whatever sound card you are using. One of them should work.
 
Have you tried reseating the card? Don't know how well it does with internals, but with my USB card, that seems to solve a multitude of issues.

Also, on your desktop taskbar, do you get the volume speaker, or does it have a red X on it? If the X is there, then there is a hardware issue. If you get the volume, then try double clicking it, then go to options, then to properties, and look in the Mixer device. The entry should say the name of your sound card, like this:

untitled by wolfeking, on Flickr

If it does not say your sound card, then go back to speaker, right click and select adjust audio properties, then click the hardware tab, and disable any hardware other than CD drive and your sound card that is listed. For me I get AMD HDMI audio, Raeltek HD Audio, DVD drive, and a list of codecs aside from my sound card. Don't touch the codec either, they are important.
 
I'm going to spare the screenshots on my end... but yes, wolfeking, the volume systray icon is normal (no red X), double clicking as the name of my card in the window it produces (I'm able to get the Mixer window like yours from Options -> Properties in the window double clicking produced). I also disabled everything in the hardware tab but the card, optical drive, and codecs.

I am not willing to open the case again until I have my new pc so I can't try reseating the card... but as said, the Hardware tab you mentioned says "This device is working properly" - which I assume would not happen if there was a connectivity issue.

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I do have some news. Sort of. Tried the headphones in the front port again after trying some things and rebooting... and there was a very* low static when the headphones were in. However, nothing played back (I tried youtube first with no success, then thought maybe there's some browser glitch since my headphones were 'working' (recognition of being plugged in), so turned on my instant messenger's sounds).

*: It is possible I didn't notice the extremely low static noise the first time I tried the front port... but I'd say the odds of that are 15/100. I do not know. Regardless, no playback.
 
wolfeking said:
Do you have any music, or a CD/DVD you an try just to rule in/out that it is a youtube issue?
Click to expand...

I tried turning on my instant messenger's sounds, to rule out the youtube/browser issue. No sound played.

My guess is the yanking of the speaker blew the speaker jack, and took the sound card out as well. Like the speaker cord being dragged ripped it inside but it was enough to reach for a connection, but because there wasn't a full connection, the sound card tried for the connection as well with all its heart... aka boom. The speaker jack having no bzz signifies it is not working properly, afaik. As far as the on-board sound not working now as well? My best guess is that's a separate issue that, unluckily, occurred at the same time (but not the same incident)(i.e. I killed it just like I killed my HD).
 
I doubt you'd have two separate sound cards feeding the front and rear outputs - are you sure you didn't plug the front panel into your sound card when you fitted it? If you've had the same signal coming out of two separate cards I'd be amazed. I couldn't manage that if I tried.
 
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