Lost sound

[MorseLady]

I have a Creative Audigy ZS card in a nearly 3 years old Evesham computer running XP Pro. I seem to have lost sound and it has been a bit distorted recently.

I have done all the checks and run through the Windows troubleshooter and there are no conflicts, nothing in device manager to suggest any problem. I cannot hear anything not even system sounds. I have checked nothing is muted and have tried plugging my headphones directly in both the back and front ports. I did have it running through my hi fi but that is perfectly OK

I cannot record. I have been doing some recording off Internet radio recently, could this have seen off my card? I have had other hardware problems with this machine and had to call on my Warranty a few months ago.

I would say my sound card has died would you agree?

[MorseLady]

Sound OK now and did nothing so maybe shutting the computer down for the night and therefore rebooting enabled it to sort itself out. Recording OK too.

[NooNoo]

Creative OEM is notoriously eccentric. Check at evesham for a driver update and keep it handy to reinstall. Often uninstalling it all in safe mode, pulling the card rebooting a few times and then putting back in makes it all work fine again.