I've had these Altec ACS295 speakers for 4 years now with no problems, then all of a sudden today I can't adjust the volume. The volume controls within Windows 2000 work just fine, but I can't the powered speakers to get louder than a whisper. Any suggestions? Are my speakers shot?

It looks like the it's the cable the thing that got shot. My headphones will also present the same symptoms if I rotate the plug that goes to the sound card. False contact perhaps?. Damaged cable?. Try moving the cable (do not force it) around the edges to see if the sound quality changes. Andrés

Yeah, I thought it might be that. I've tried moving the cable around with no improvement. It's odd, the sound quality is fine, it's just that the volume knob on the top of the speaker suddenly has no effect. Almost like the speakers lost the ability to take external power. Also, the volume knob doesn't quiet the volume either. It literally has absolutely no effect. Thanks for the help.

Then it looks like the volume knob on the speaker is the part that is causing the problem. Since all sound goes through it, if for some reason it's broken, sound will be affected as well. If you dare, you could try opening the speaker and checking the knob from the inside, and cleaning it a bit. Andrés