Windows XP real life problem

I just passed both CompTIA A+ exams as well as Network+ and am getting ready to study for 70-270. I recently encountered a problem on my own computer that is making me scratch my head, so I hope that I can get some advice here. The machine is a Dell Inspiron B130.

The sound worked this morning, and now this afternoon, I've got nothing. The Sounds and Audio Devices in the Control panel show no errors; disabling then enabling the device driver did nothing; downloading a new driver did nothing; restoring to last Saturday's previous restore point did nothing. The system error log shows a repeating error 256 that popped up about eight times this morning about the time that I stopped getting sound. The intarweb indicates that this is a PnP error and isn't serious.

I'm at a loss, I'm hearing nothing from either the speakers or the headphone out, so I assume that it's hardware related. All of the software indicates that the speakers should be on full blast.

Any ideas before this thing becomes a discus?

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Comments

Nuwin

Does your sound card have both analog and digital outputs? If so, are you using analog but the sound card is set to digital out only? I sometimes forget to make the switch when I move from my stereo (digital out) to my cheap desktop speakers (analog)...

Although this probably won't help, it's easy to check.

sprkymrk

Look at the keys on your keyboard, some are in a purple/blue color. You may have disabled sound by using one of these keys simultaneously with the "Fn" key of the same color.

weargle

sprkymrk wrote:

Look at the keys on your keyboard, some are in a purple/blue color. You may have disabled sound by using one of these keys simultaneously with the "Fn" key of the same color.

Son of a ... that fixed it. Don't know why using the keyboard to turn the speakers off then back on worked, but it did.