Speaker - Headphone Pc Issue

[Old_Geezer]

Was unsure whether to put this into 'Computers' or 'Gaming' as it may be an issue with either, but :

Been playing a game called Dragon Age II. I've played it before, dug it back out to have another go. Part of the way through I thought I'd plug in a set of earphones to see if the atmosphere was better through them than it is through the PC speakers.

It wasn't bad, to be honest; problem is that, that seems to have affected something.

At some point I removed the earphones and continued with the speakers, but some time later noticed the sound had suddenly stopped.

On looking at the 'volume mixer' some things were set to mute so I unmuted them (these latest control panes are really weird, at present I only see 4 sliders, speakers, system, firefox, and flash). But it didn't clear the issue.

I checked the games settings and they were fine. Changed them and changed them back all over the place for no change.

On a flash of inspiration I plugged the earphones back in and I can hear sound from them. So maybe it's a problem with the plug or something ? Well no I can't believe that as other things such as system sounds (and even the game intro screen) has no problem playing through the speakers.

So I'm running out of ideas where the issue might lie. I suspect there is a control somewhere blocking off 'true game sounds' from the speaker but allowing other sounds. But I'm unsure where I find that sort of thing.

Any ideas as to what to change where ?

[The Builder]

OG, this may be a case of the blind leading the blind, but.............. do you have "onboard" sound (built in to motherboard) or an added sound card?

Perhaps it's worth looking in "control panel" under "sound", or the built-in soundcard, maybe "Realtek"

[Old_Geezer]

Audio is from motherboard. Expensive enough getting separate graphics card ;-) An Asus Maximus V Gene IIRC. (Maybe there's a way to get the PC to tell me.)

[Old_Geezer]

Ah tried your advice, kicking myself I hadn't done that, only to find I came to the same pop-up that I got from the icon in the system tray. Ah well.

[SlackAlice]

Have you tried going to the Motherboards website to pick up the latest sound drivers?
Have you specified headphones as 'default' in your pc settings. Does playing audio on anything else cause problems, ie, youtube, CD or DVD.

To find out more type 'system information' in the Windows search box and click on the link. Check out Components/Multimedia and Components/Problem Devices for more details.

[Old_Geezer]

Going have to return to this Monday I think as I'm off soon, but the default is (are ?) speakers. Youtube music seems to find the speakers just fine.

Interestingly there are 2 entries in the problem area. Not sure either are applicable though. Both are drivers not being installed. 'Marvell 91xx Config ATA device' and 'USB Controller'. Weird because I can plug USB in just fine so I'm unsure what to make of all that.

Perhaps I'll visit the motherboard website Monday, but the trouble with doing stuff like that is that it isn't always clear what one should download and install. PCs should be able to do their own check.

[Old_Geezer]

Not a lot of experience here for this sort of issue then :-(

Ok, an update. Been playing around with the W7 sound controls. Particularly the pop-up showing the hardware settings (but also in the slider controls shown for different things).

I don't note every step I make so when I reach a situation Lord only knows how I got there or what was significant.

Changed speakers to default, switched off any extra stuff, not that I recall much. As for the sliders shown, set any I found to max and now jump out of my skin when the regular PC use chings or beeps.

I reached a point where the game was finally not making any sound at all ! Well ok at the start when it presents the menu the music was plain enough, but there must be different streams of audio treated separately for some reason as, as soon as one pressed play, the sounds went.

At this point it's fair to say I find the W7 controls confusing. Time was (XP and before) when each slider seemed understandable, now we seem to get one for every application that's open and could make sound.

Anyway I had a brainwave (or is that brainstorm ?) which has at least brought back sound to the speakers. (I've not yet experimented to see if it has cured anything else.)

Started the game. Control Tabbed out to the rest of the PC. Spotted the sliders had added a further one for the game (which of course is normally not seen as one is in a full screen game). It was already unmuted and set to max so no issues there then. Moved the slider up and down, no change. Muted the thing, no change. Unmuted it, music !

There is obviously something wrong with the game/windows communication. W7 shows a sound stream as unmuted but it is muted. It is lying. One mutes it and unmutes it again and sound is suddenly heard.

Anyone know of this defect in W7 ? Is there an easy way to "patch" it ?

[Old_Geezer]

Ah a quick check shows the earphones are now being ignored. Maybe to do with those default settings ? Yes it seems we get a list of sliders for both devices AND applications these days. But the earphones aren't presently showing when plugged in. It's like the PC is ignoring them in that volume mixer pop-up.