Is there a way to test my sound card to see if its faulty. I have a Dell dim 8400 and was on line two days ago with dell connect trying to fix my sound which stopped working. They said that my sound card was bad and I needed a new one. Is there a way to test it my self ? I have win xp 160 gig hard drive with 3gig memory installed and 3.4 ghz proc. I use it primary for video editing, any help would be great.
You can find out if it's a driver problem by using Windows' 'DXDiag' program. (run it from the CMD prompt - it's hard to find otherwise). That will narrow it down to hardware.
The program tells me there is no sound card installed . So I should take this as the card is bad then ?
Not necessarily. Next step is 'Device Manager'. That's located under 'System Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager'. If your card shows there under Audio Devices, Right click on it and select 'Uninstall'. Reboot and Windows will find the soundcard and hopefully reinstall it properly. If it doesn't show up as a device it just may be hosed.
Ok there is no "Audio Devices" listed at all but there is a section called "Sound,Video and game controllers" and I see that its not in there either. I think you are right its probably toast. I'll pick up a cheap SoundBlaster Card $50.00 and see if it works. Thanks for your help.
