I. Making sure you have a card and
drivers for it installed.
First, be sure that you have a sound
card installed on your system and have speakers or headphones connected to it.
The sound card is usually a card in the back of you machine, although some
newer machines have them installed on the motherboard. Check that the wire from
your speakers or headphones is connected to the "Speaker Out" or
" Spk Out" slot on the back of you machine.
Once you have checked these connections
and you know that you have a sound card and headphones or speakers, follow this
guide:
Check that you have the drivers for the
card installed:
In
Windows 95/98/NT, go to "Start" - > "Settings" -
> "Control Panel" and double click the "Multimedia"
icon. This should bring up the "Multimedia Properties" box.
On
the Audio tab, you should see two areas: Playback and Recording. If these
are greyed out and have "None" listed under Preferred device for
these sections, then your sound card drivers have not been installed.
If
you have a device listed here, such as "AWE64 Wave Out" or
"Sound Blaster 16" then your drivers are installed. Make sure to
check the "Show volume control on the taskbar" option.
If you do not have drivers installed.
Consult
your sound card documentation or follow this basic guide on how to install
drivers for your sound card. You will need the disk or CDROM that came
with you sound card.
Switch
to the "Devices" tab of the Multimedia Properties box.
Click
"Add."
Choose
"Unlisted or Updated Driver" and his "OK."
Enter
the path to the disk or CDROM that came with the Sound Card and hit
"OK."
Select
your card and click "OK"
Your
machine may need to reboot.
Checking
Sound Levels and Speaker Volume
Once you know you have a card and
drivers installed, check the volume and make sure it is at an audible level.
Go
to the system Volume Control by double clicking the small speaker icon
next to the "Time" field on the taskbar. If you do not have this
icon, follow the instructions above on getting to the "Multimedia
Properties" box and click "Show volume control on the
taskbar."
(Actual Volume
Control Options may vary slightly depending on your configuration.)
Make
sure the "Play Control" or "Master" and the
"Wave" controls are set to a high enough level and make sure
that your speakers have the volume turned up high enough.
If
the sound level available from your card is too low, you may need to use
headphones or amplified speakers. Before doing this you should ensure that
both master volume and "wave" levels are set to their maximum,
and not muted. if you add speakers be sure the power supply is plugged in,
and the power switch is on.