Sound Gone?

[Honest Fr@nk]

The sound was working fine one minute. Then I tried plugging in a cable to connect my PC to my hifi amplifier. Then nothing. No sound from my PC ever again. Ive changed no settings in the process.

Any ideas folks

[Saab Dastard]

Any sparks, bangs or burning smells?

[DBTL]

That could be a result of the signal line becoming physically connected just before the ground line when plugging in the 3.5 mm plug at the sound card due to the design of the plug. Then any voltage differential between the "ground" of your external amp and "ground" the computer (known as ground-loop voltage) would briefly try to equalise itself across the signal line, destroying sound hardware in the process. A separate grounding wire connecting the two should solve the problem, (but will not resurrect the sound hardware).


http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/

[Honest Fr@nk]

Cheers lads

so does it sound like the sound card has gone kaput.

[DBTL]

Fortunately a replacement sound card is easy to find, a basic old PCI SoundBlaster should be found used in any shop at next to nothing.

[Honest Fr@nk]

Thanks DB. Will check it out