I recently turned on my computer to find that my sound has corrupted. For instance, I can hear certain sounds in my favourite game, such as gunfire, but not others, such as speech. I can hear certain Windows Media files but not others.

If I go to control panel/sounds I can play certain Windows sounds, such as start-up and exit, but not others, such as windows alert etc etc.

If I run dxdiag and then run directsound test I get an error (can't remember the error I'm at work atm). I have tried reinstalling DirectX9.0c.

I have tried reinstalling my soundcard, unistalling soundcard and using onboard sound, system restore and reinstalling windows. It looks to me like a MOBO problem but wanted the advice of experts. Please!

Thanks

Simon

If unistalling and reinstalling the board's drivers didn't work, and you had the same issue with onboard sound, then it sounds more like a config issue in windows than a hardware problem. the motherboard should not be at fault, but it still also may be prudent to swap the sound card to a different PCI slot if another is available.

okay, i guess I dont read well... you said you reinstalled windows, which will usually take care of such an issue. I would still swap pci slots if possible. If this doesn't work, if you have another sound card at your disposal (another computer, parts lying around, etc.) then I would try that. If it still doesn't work, then perhaps it is motherboard related......

Have you tried different speakers? That has to be the weirdest sound problem ever.

I have tried different PCI slots. Haven't got a spare card but I will get one. FWIW, this is the error message on the DirectX directsound test:

DirectSound test results: Failure at step 19 (User verification of software): HRESULT = 0x00000000 (error code)

Unfortunately after searching on Google I have found this to be a very generic error message :(

The directmusic test brings up no errors.

The help is much appreciated, thank you. I'll post back if I work it out!

Well i solved it - but not as simple as it sounds. Will explain in event of helping others.

Reinstalled Windows again and tried a different sound card - it worked. So, I hoovered my current sound card just to make sure it wasn't dust. The problem was still there but now it would play ALL sounds out of speakers but not my headset. So, I tried some walkman in-ear headphones. This DID work with my old soundcard. So, it was my headset. However, why would my headset play some windows system sounds and not others? Who knows.

Simple solution but the problem still baffles me! (if you know what I mean).

Thanks

Simon