My sound was playing fine until later today; it just stopped working. My speakers are connected properly, the sound is not muted, and there is no device driver conflict. Everything is there; it just quit working.

I'm pretty good at troubleshooting but I'm completely baffled on this one. Any help is appreciated.

Have you:

Confirmed audio volume levels besides mute being on/off?
Verified the speakers with another audio source?

Checked for blown fuses, if any, on the speakers?
Confirmed speaker power supply, if any, is providing power at correct voltage?
Confirmed [insert pet of choice] didn't chew on the speaker cable?

Verified the computer's audio output with another set of speakers?
Confirmed [insert pet of choice] didn't snag cable and break jack on computer?


What speaker model? If speakers were working and just died and they are 5.1 or other fancy type, I'd suspect fuse or amp problem after checking audio control, cables, and verifying computer output.

I don't own any pets and the speakers are the factory model that came with the PC. It's a model GEM 2.0 USB Type by Diamond Audio Technology and they are sealed at the factory.

Like I said, there's no conflict with the device driver. There is no yellow exclamation mark in the sound, video and game controllers of the device manager list. I have all the current drivers from gateway, however, I just plugged in a set of headphones and all I get is static, no sound. I'm guessing it's the audio device and not the speakers.

Everything is connected. I even swapped USB ports with my wireless mouse to make sure it wasn't limited to one of the ports.

...It's a model GEM 2.0 USB Type...I just plugged in a set of headphones and all I get is static, no sound.
These are a different animal. Audio output to USB speakers doesn't go through the audio hardware jack on the back of the computer. For the USB speakers, confirm in the Control Panel Sound applet that the sound playback device is set to USB Audio Device (or similar) and not the audio hardware. You can also change the playback device to the audio hardware to verify output to headphones connected to the rear jack and that the sound subsystem is working. If you get sound, the speakers or the USB subsystem is suspect.

Do you have another computer to install the speakers on to eliminate them as the problem?


There is no yellow exclamation mark in the sound, video and game controllers of the device manager list...
How about under the Universal Serial Bus Controllers branch?

Lack of a yellow exclamation mark does not absolutely guarantee the hardware is physically working, only that the device driver or Windows hasn't detected an problem. For instance, a broken audio jack or surge damage on the output circuitry of the audio hardware will not result in a yellow exclamation point, yet there still won't be sound at any speakers connected to the jack.

I ran the troubleshooter and found out I could play system sounds, so I knew my sound card and speakers were still working. I then went to
The device manager and selected the driver tab for the device.

I clicked on "Install driver from a specific location" and then "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install." I switched to Microsoft UAA function
Driver for high definition audio, and then I switched back to Real Tech High Definition Audio. I can now play other sound files such as mp3s.

My sound is working again! I wonder why it stopped working in the first place...

Thank you for your assistance.

All right well I have tried that but I have windows vista wich isn't allowing me to really browse through different drivers and the speaker problem is still going on I have tried everything I possibly can and nothing it doesn't make any sense!