I’m going to take the top off my PC and wiggle my soundcard. Then maybe I’ll blow on it. I’ve actually never taken apart my PC before, so I’m excited.
I guess the fact that my PC wouldn’t make any sounds should have clued me in to the fact that my sound wasn’t working, but it took a dialogue box from MusicMatch saying “MMJB Soundcard Problem” to clue me in. I tried Windows Media, which also reported that there was something wrong with my soundcard. It pointed me to a Microsoft Knowledgebase article, which suggested that I change a setting in the control panel.
Ah yes, a software problem. It’s easy to blame Windows, especially when Windows points the finger at itself. The article says my hardware acceleration slider might be set too high. So I follow the directions to access my hardware acceleration slider, but the button that should give access to it doesn’t respond. I can click it all I want – but nothing happens. Discouraged, I think I didn’t install any software or change any settings, so it was just wishful thinking that it was a software problem anyway (ignoring that the control panel isn’t working – pretty much the definition of a software problem). So I’ll wiggle and blow now. Hopefully that’ll work.