Q. We have lost the sound on our Dell Windows XP computer–startup sounds, music, the “You’ve Got Mail” guy on AOL–all have gone away.
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The strange thing is that I do hear music when I go to one certain Web site, so I know the speakers are plugged in properly, and my mute button is not selected.
I have checked the volume controls in the Control Panel, and I’ve uninstalled RealPlayer, which has caused me problems in the past, but I am totally stumped.
Any thoughts?
Paul Smith, Highland Park
A. There are two possible problems to cause this selective muting problem, Mr. S., and they can be fixed at the same spot. You know that spot well. It is the Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel that is reached by clicking on Start and then Control Panel.
Opening the Sound icon in this panel brings up a menu with several tabs. You need the one called Audio. Open that and at the top you will see a box listing the Default Device, which refers to your computer’s sound card.
Make certain that the card’s name is listed there. If it is empty or unfamiliar, click on the tiny arrow at the side of the box to call up a list of available audio sources. Select your card and play something loud.
If that doesn’t fix the problem, then you probably have another very common issue, where one of the many audio input sources for sounds is muted or turned down to the lowest setting on the slider bar that accompanies each source.
So click on Volume in the Audio tab of the Control Panel. This brings up that master volume display you mention in your note. The problem is that this display only shows a few of the possible sources until you change its settings.
Look for the Properties item in the volume control box’s upper left corner and click there. This brings up a list of all the possible devices, and you’ll find many them are unchecked. Check them all.
The next time you call up the Volume setting, all of them will be listed. Look for the entry or entries with a check in the Mute box and crank up the volume sliders of each, and you’ve found the culprit.
Q. My computer freezes up at the Windows XP logo screen when booting up each time I start it. I have changed memory, cleared the CMOS (input-output settings) and run the Setup utility. Could my CPU or motherboard be bad?
Doug Battle @wideopenwest.com.
A. I don’t know whether it’s the central processing unit microprocessor at the heart of the machine or the motherboard upon which the CPU sits or something else, Mr. B. I also don’t know if it’s your CMOS (complementary metallic oxide semiconductor).
But it is probably something else. Whatever it is, I can tell you how to find out what’s wrong.
As your machine boots up, it loads its own unique combination of software elements and driver software for hardware as well as for Windows. All you see is a blue screen with a logo, so you don’t know what was loading when things went kaput.
A tool called Boot Logging built in to the XP Safe Mode menu will give you that answer. To call up Safe Mode, hold down the F8 key as the computer boots up. This brings up a black screen with white lettering, and there are several choices below Safe Mode at the top. Pick the one called Boot Logging.
As your computer goes through its startup sequence, it will write a report to a text file showing how each bit of code loaded or did not load. This information is written to a Notepad document called ntlog.txt and placed in the Windows directory. It will be C
Windows ntblog.txt.
I am assuming that your computer will boot up when you restart it after that first lockup, which is most often the case.
If this is not the case, you should go back to the Safe Mode menu using the F8 key at startup to bring up the computer in a stripped-down state, with hardly any device drivers and minimal software loaded, including the routines you used to access the setup utility.
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Using that minimal setup, you can point to the Windows directory and read the boot-logging file. This ntblog.txt lists every startup move with a Loaded or Did Not Load note.
Find the first that did not load, and you probably have the problem spotlighted and will know whether it’s hardware, like the CPU, or software, like some part of Windows.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.