uh oh... laptop sound card

[lozina]

Plugged in my headphones into my laptop today (Dell Inspiron) and I hear this static noise... odd I thought... I always leave my laptop muted, and anyway there never should be noise unless I play something...

so I check my laptop volume, it is indeed muted. I un-mute it.. .same noise. I play a file, same noise but no music is played. I pump up the volume on my laptop and the player- nothing. I confirm mute is not on for the master volume control nor the player. Just some static noise consistently coming from headphones.

If I unplug headphones I get complete silence. No static noise form speakers nor any music when I play it. Windows has not complained about anything breaking with the sound drivers or anything like that.

Tried rebooting... same result.

Time to replace sound card?

Is it easy to replace sound card on laptop?

 

[Bassyhead]

Try posting this in Technical Support where it would be more appropriate. It would also help if we knew what make/model of laptop you have. Most likely the sound is built into the laptop itself.

 

[lozina]

it's a Dell Inspiron 8600. out of warranty by now