Sound Mystery Solved: It was the second shooter!

OK so maybe that sound issue my friend was having wasn’t exactly the JFK assassination, but it did all make sense tonight when I went back. I brought an old sound card I had laying around over to see if I could replace the one that was bad. It was only when I went to unhook everything from the PC that I noticed that, in the very bottom slot, underneath the video and network cables, was a second set of audio outputs.

Suddenly, it all made sense. The machine had two sound cards. The Audigy sound card that Windows kept telling me was working just fine, was this one, not the one the speakers were plugged into up near the top of the case. That one really was dead, and didn’t show up at all in Windows.

Now, near as I can tell without spending a lot of time looking at the PC, I think the second card had a gaming component to it when the PC was built. I saw a reference to a gaming port on my first trip, but it wasn’t audio related where I saw it, and she wasn’t using any gaming peripherals, so I ignored it. Again, I was assuming the one sound card I could see from peeking down the back of the PC was also the one sound card listed in Windows. I was wrong. I wish I had pulled the PC all the way out the other night so I could see that second set of outputs. Would have saved myself a whole lot of time!

So, my own “duh!” moment aside, she has sound and is very happy just in time for her birthday tomorrow, and I got back home earlier than I expected to when I left, so all is good.

Next time I’ll be more aware to check for two sound card outputs on the back of the PC!

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