No sound from the pc - Intel CMI 8738 6-Channel 5.1 Surround Sound 3D PCI Sound Card (RETAIL BOX) - CM8738

Hi Michael,

There can be many problems, why you can't get any sound from your computer.

If you didn't already check them with another audio source or by connecting to another computer, check your speakers and earphones/headphones to make sure they are not the cause. A very common mistake that people do, is to accidentally connect the speaker cable (one with the green connector), to the Line-out or Microphone socket on the back of the computer. Just double-check to make sure, this is not the cause of the problem.

If the speakers and headphones work fine with the other audio source or on another computer, you may try doing a system restore to a previous state. You may want to create a new restore point first, before doing that, so that if the previous state is worse, you can return the computer back to the present state. To know more about System Restore, go to this link or copy/paste it into your browser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore

If system restore didn't work for you, then, look carefully on the Windows Taskbar (near the clock). Do you see the speaker icon or does it have a red cross on it? Touch it with the mouse pointer. Does it show any error message? If yes, then most likely the sound driver is missing or corrupted. You can try updating the drivers, other than with Microsoft update wizard, either by manually downloading the drivers from your computer manufacturer's page, or with an easier method.

Here's the easy method to get or update your sound drivers:

You could try to use this driver scanning tool, which would scan your computer for needed drivers and has an option to automatically retrieve them for you.

You can download this free driver scanning tool from here: http://xpdrivers.com/index.cfm or directly from this link: http://xpdrivers.com/download/download.c… (copy and paste the link, if you can't click it).

After you have downloaded the above file, double-click on it and follow the simple steps to install it. Then, when it asks if you want to run it, just answer yes. This is easier than manually searching, downloading and installing the drivers.

For Windows XP Driver Files and How-to Resources, visit http://xpdrivers.com

Hope that helps,
Regards,
Raspal