- External sound card for laptop with line in install#
- External sound card for laptop with line in drivers#
- External sound card for laptop with line in driver#
- External sound card for laptop with line in upgrade#
- External sound card for laptop with line in Pc#
A USB sound card or USB speakers/headphones with an integrated sound card is the best solution. I'm not going to attempt to fix a mechanical problem of this sort. Could also be a loose solder joint at the jack. If this fails to happen due to a misaligned contact for example, you won't hear sound from the internal speakers. When you pull out the plug the contacts should spring back together. In the older Inspirons, when you insert the plug into the jack the plug pushes apart the spring contacts and breaks the connection to the speakers. I'll present him with a list of possible solutions and he can make his own choice. He left even before I had received the memory needed to get the laptop running well enough to really test anything. Audio may not have been working when the laptop was turned over to me. I have spent probably 8 hours trying to get some sound out of the laptop and that is enough.
You could try other Linux live distributions. That would tend to indicate a hardware issue.
External sound card for laptop with line in driver#
After driver install, it shows up as an alternate audio card. Not saying this one is any better than the dozens of others or that it works for Win7. I've used the SIIG USB dongle to get DD AC3 out of my old XP Compaq laptop. If you want to give up on the Dell audio, you can add a USB dongle, an Express Card or external USB audio device. I used the media player with all of the various audio outputs offered by Ubuntu and still had no sound, even with the volume turned up all the way. As suggested, I booted into Linux from an Ubunto CD I created this evening. Most Dell laptops are supported by Ubuntu. I still suspect a driver or audio settings issue.īoot from a Linux live disc and see if they can discover audio. (He says he wants a Mac next time around, but I don't think he will like the pricetag.) I will do some more shopping and see if I can find some USB headphones and speakers that my nephew could still use when he saves enough money to buy a new Mac laptop or a new Windows 7 laptop. Well it looks like all the built-in audio devices are useless. It has integrated speakers as well as a headphone port, but neither produces sound, no matter which I choose for audio output.
SigmaTel C-Major Audio is the default audio device, and not muted. Windows XP's troubleshooting incorporates those steps, but I checked again anyway. I'm just usually quiet, but this laptop is always quiet, except for the fan.
Definitely the USB device should work, uninstall and disable the on-board sound first. Other than checking to make sure it's the default audio device and that the outputs are not muted, sounds like it's dead.
External sound card for laptop with line in Pc#
So it always does this, I mean this PC is actually Usually Quiet? Or would that be UNusually quiet?
External sound card for laptop with line in drivers#
Troubleshooting within windows XP indicates everything is fine, but there is no sound.and Dell's diagnostics indicates the drivers are correct, and the device is working, except the final audio diagnostic test (playing a tune), which produces no sound. I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the audio drivers. The only drivers I could not find on the CD were for the wireless network card, which I downloaded from Dell support based on the service tag, When I discovered audio was not working, I did the same for the latest audio driver. Thanks, I wish I could say I wasn't sure, but unfortunately, I am certain I installed the right audio drivers.ĭell provides a separate driver installation CD. Otherwise, a USB audio device should work after driver install.
External sound card for laptop with line in install#
Are these likely to work?Īre you sure you downloaded the correct audio driver for your model ? You need to download and install all the drivers. I read that some USB audio devices are able to function without a laptop soundcard and could give him audio, but I have no experience with them. I finally ran Dell's hardware diagnostics CD, and based on having no audible sound in its tests, it seems likely the sound card itself is dead. I tried updated drivers as well as the original ones, and it made no difference. All settings were correct and Device Manager reported the SigmaTel Audio device was working properly. No audio from the headphone jack using headphones and speakers that worked with my own PC's headphone jack.
External sound card for laptop with line in upgrade#
It has a 2.8 GHz P4, so I thought it would be worth saving.Ī fresh re-install of Windows XP and a memory upgrade from 256MB to 2GB fixed the problems he was complaining about, but I found a new one.
It has been sitting in the closet unused for 3 years because everything ran too slow and the unremovable firewall his university IT department installed prevented it from establishing an Internet connection at home. My nephew gave me a Dell Inspiron 5150 to rehabilitate for him.