Hey guys,
I'm having a probken with my sound cutting out/returning. Here is the story:
Firstly, I should point out that I use headphones as I don't have any speakers right now. The headphones are plugged directly into the soundcard in the back of the PC, this is because the line in/line out on the front of the PC stopped working many moons ago (it's a relatively old PC).
A few days ago, with my sound working perfectly, I left my PC running and went to sleep. When I woke up and went to play some music, I found I had no sound. I checked my headphones and there was no problem with them. I checked Device Manager and saw that under "Other Devices", there was a little yellow exclamation icon next to Multimedia Audio Controller.
With a little advice from searching the internet, I realised I should try updating my soundcard drivers. I tried using the Windows Wizard to do this but it couldn't find the drivers. So I did it manually at the manufacturer's website (Creative) and after installation, I restarted my PC. Success! I had sound!
However, the next day, while I was working on some music production (using sequencing software and MIDI VSTs) I suddenly lost my sound again! I used the Creative auto-updater I installed to check if my soundcard was still missing drivers or updates but it said everything was fine and up to date.
While searching the internet for advice (I have my headphones on) I heard a strange echoing crack. I immediately checked to see if sound had returned and it had! So I then had sound again. But tonight it cut out again! The soundcard drivers are all up to date and I don't know what to try.
What's going on!? Is my soundcard on its last legs? Or is there something else I should check for?
Here is my basic PC info:
OS: Windows XP pro
Processor: 2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64
Soundcard: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio (by Creative)
Please ask if you need to know anything else!
Thanks!