Resolved Sony Vaio - No sound

I've got a Sony vaio laptop in for repair that I've just reinstalled Win 7 Home Premium on and there's no sound. I've got audio drivers in Device Manager but no joy. All I've got is the speaker symbol with a red cross and a tip that says "No speakers or headphones plugged in" I have tried plugging headphones in to no avail.

When I took the laptop in, it had a smashed power socket and a knackered hard drive which is now sorted and the laptop is working fine otherwise apart from the sound. My suspicion is that, given the damage, it has fallen to the ground with quite a bump and my theory is that this is hardware damage. I've re-opened the case to check the internal cables just to be sure but everything looks OK.

I also checked in case the onboard sound was disabled in BIOS but there's no option to do that so I reset to System Defaults to be sure but no joy there either.

I've even re-booted into Linux Live boots (Mint and Knoppix) and tried to play sound files that way but no joy there either - hence my suspicion of hardware failure.

I've never had occasion to use USB headphones or speakers. Can anyone tell me if suggesting USB headphones or speakers will give sound or do they need the sound card to be functioning?

 

You still need a sound device of some sort. Windows does not know how to drive speakers. It only knows when to play and where to pass sound "events ".

It sounds likes (no pun intended) the on board sound device is bad. There are USB sound adapters you can install, configure so Windows will use it instead of the integrated sound device, then connect a set of headphones or speakers to it.

That said, I am surprised you did not see any Sound Device options in the BIOS Setup Menu. I would look again. And, check the Fn Key options and any extra keys. My notebook has a mute key.

 

Hi Bill. It seems that the audio device is actually there as there's a sound, video and games controller listed in device manager. Expanding that gives me High Definition audio controllers and checking the properties advises that the device is working properly.

The BIOS, in this vaio at least, brings minimalist to a whole new level of minimal. Its a case of set the date and time, the boot order, BIOS security passwords and thats it.

The Fn key gives the usual options but none that I need.

 

Maybe you need to take it back in. Maybe they knocked something loose.

 

I'm doing the repair Bill!!

And I've reopened it to check that nothing was loose and there isn't.

Like I said originally, this laptop has all the symptoms of a serious impact. Smashed power socket and wrecked hard drive. Now the sound problem that wasn't apparent when I assessed the laptop initially.

 

Good luck. I wish I had more to offer but if the notebook was dropped or something like that, you may be out of luck. Notebooks just are not reparable like PCs are because they use many proprietary (and expensive, often hard to find) parts.

 

I've spoken to the customer and, since its now usable, they don't want to spend any more serious money on it. I've advised that a USB audio adapter will get sound back along with external speakers or a headset. It won't cost the earth and they can install that themselves easily enough.

I guess its time to mark this as resolved (of sorts!!).