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System Sounds not playing

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by hereinoz 1 view

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Hi All,

I could be being a bit thick here, but we have a machine, running XP SP2, where in the last couple of weeks, the system sounds (startup, shut down, new mail, all those things) have stopped working. The machine still plays CDs and things, so the sound chip is working, and if I go in to Control panel, in the Sounds area, I can play the system sounds and they will play OK there, just that they don't play when they ought to.

So the user doesn't get any critical beeps (he should be happy, but isn't!!) or startup sounds or new mail sound, but he does get a simple beep from the PC speaker when new mail arrives, but no wav sound.

I have exhausted all my thoughts on this one, but hopefully there is something that I have missed that one or two of you will have come across.

Hope you can help.

Cheers,

Alan

8 replies

by dryflies

Go to the control panel and then "Sounds and Audio Devices" That dialog will tell you which sounds are assigned to which events. There is the off chance that one of the channels on the sound card is muted so you should look at the advanced volume control as well. Odds are events are not assigned to sounds. The easiest way to correct it is to choose a sounds theme. in the dialog described above.

by hereinoz

Thanks to both of you. It turned out to be a corruption of some description in the user profile - all other users on the machine were fine, so I created a new profile for this particular user and blew the old one away (the profile, not the user!).

I really don't know what the problem was at the nuts and bolts level, but it is fine now after a little bit of setting up to get things the way they used to be.

Many thanks again,

Alan

by hereinoz

I have already been down that path, with all the sound schemes and volumes and muting, and the full bit. However, I will have another poke about and see what I can find.

My first thought was that someone had selected the "No Sounds" Scheme, or had muted a device, but sadly that was not the case, and the owner still wants me to fix it.

It is a bit of a mystery at the moment.

Cheers,

Alan

by scooby170480

I had the same problem a few weeks ago on my laptop. The way i fixed it was by changing the priority of codec's. Might be worth checking to see if you have a no-standard codec with a high priority.

The default one should be IMA ADPCM Audio CODEC.

Go into the CONTROL PANEL
Sounds and Audio Devices
Hardware
Audio Codecs Tab
Properties

Check in here for the codec's.

Might not be it but it's worth looking.

by hereinoz

Thanks to both of you. It turned out to be a corruption of some description in the user profile - all other users on the machine were fine, so I created a new profile for this particular user and blew the old one away (the profile, not the user!).

I really don't know what the problem was at the nuts and bolts level, but it is fine now after a little bit of setting up to get things the way they used to be.

Many thanks again,

Alan

by lcolby1

I've been messing around with this thing for years now....I think what you suggested actually worked when I deleted the ASPNET profile and left only mine.
You're a Genius!

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