Can you listen to music without a sound card?

Hello,

I have a machine which does not appear to have a sound card in it - I can't play any music files and there is no volume control etc. But when I put in a CD I can listen to it and use the CD ROM volume controls.

I have Windows 2000.

Do I have a soundcard and if not, how can I hear music?

Cheers

James

Depends. CDs can play music either 'digitally' thats when cd decodes and plaies by itself, or use 'analog' method when info is passed to the sound card by cord. So it is possible not to have sound card and still play music in cdrom. I am on winxp and it is in
control panes->sound and audio devices->hardware->select you cd rom here->properties and there is a checkbox whether or not use digital cd

If you're plugging your ministereo jack for your headphones/speaker directly into the CD-ROM drive, then it's entirely possible that your system doesn't have a soundcard.

The port built into your CD-ROM drive completely bypasses your computer and offers direct sound output from a CD.

Just turn your computer around and look at the back,

is there a jack to plug speakers into?

if so then you have a sound card, if not then you don't