Is my soundcard dead?

I had a PC repair shop re-format the hard drive on my laptop (a Sony Vaio PCG-SR11k) and afterwards they said that they couldn't get the sound card to work. I didn't think this would be a problem, so when I got home, I tried re-installing the audio drivers from the recovery CD, removing them and installing several drivers from the web, including one from the Sony site, but no luck.

The problem symptoms are:

- The soundcard is completely silent with no signal from the internal speakers or headphone jack. Incidentally, I can configure it to give crude beep, if the sound card drivers are completely removed and the sound card disabled.

- The Sound Card is being detected in device manager, reported as working properly, and with no conflicts. (Yeah, right!)

- The microphone input still seems to record. I can see a waveform on recording software, when I use a microphone.

- As far as I can tell, every volume button is turned up, and nothing is muted. Unless there is some super secret master volume which has been muted.

My System is:

A Sony Vaio PCG-SR11k Laptop

Yamaha YMF754B-R Sound Chip (Under the device manager it shows up as Yamaha DS-XG PCI Audio Codec (WDM))

Windows 2000 SP4

Does anybody know of a sound card diagnostic program? I don't think the soundcard is removable, and I can't think of anyway to test the card?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Norton makes a Hardware Diagnostic Application that is included in Norton SystemWorks.

Did you try to play a music CD?

If no sound card is configured in windows, the pc internal speaker will be used. Maybe the VAIOs connect the internal PC Speaker to the same speakers as the sound card (I have seen that in other systems)


Sometimes, with bad drivers, the on/off meaning is switched. Try to switch them off. The important settings are:
- Master Volume
- PCM Volume
- PreAmp if available

First I would check MIDI. Start the examples (".mid") in C:/WINDOWS/MEDIA/. Start with midi because it is a standard.
Then PCM. Play a "wav" file.
Last test is CD-Audio. You are using windows 2000, there is some minor pitfalls:
By default, CD-Audio will play analog. You need a four (three) wire cable from the CD-Rom to the sound card (or MoBo).

Go to "My PC", right click on the CD-Rom and select "properties". Somewhere is an option "Play digital CDA". This is what you want because it will always work.
Windows XP plays "digital" by default.
...
Any results so far?

M.

I have the same problem, still unresolved.

Other info:
- updated to latest sony drivers
- "clean" Win2000 SP4 installation
- winupdated everything
- all volumes are ON
- no midi sound during playback
- no CDA sound during playback

I noticed that JogDial utility doesn't work, too.
... any other suggestions?

LC