Chapter 14. Troubleshooting Sound

What You’ll Learn

In this chapter, I’ll show you:

• The new sound architecture in Vista

• How to troubleshoot your sound adapter

• How to fix video that has no audio

• How bitrate affects sound

• How to disable onboard audio and use a third-party sound card

• How to isolate a speaker problem

• Where all the mute and volume controls are in Vista

Troubleshooting Sound

Have your speakers gone mute? Is your system deaf to input from your microphone? Don’t worry; your computer hasn’t gone permanently Helen Keller on you. It’s probably a new Vista quirk or an old Windows problem that still hasn’t been fixed. (Just wait until you get to the bit on codecs.) Or perhaps Vista’s fine, and your hardware has come unstrung.

The happy news is that sound on Vista is better than ever. There is all new sound plumbing inside the OS. The Vista team rewrote the audio stack. So, there’s improved reliability when it comes to audio in Vista. And better, a bad sound error doesn’t generate a blue screen and crash Windows anymore. Instead, it only crashes the audio stack.

Let’s use a car horn analogy to illustrate this. All cars have horns that produce sound, but they are not tied to the way the engine works.

In an “XP” car, a broken horn would stall the vehicle and render it unusable, sending it careening into a group of singing orphans at the bus stop. In a “Vista” car, if the horn breaks and goes silent, you can’t honk, but even if this happens, you still have control of the car and no orphans are harmed.

This is the happy news.

The bad news is that Vista sound repair is like fending off a flock of feral penguins when you’re wearing herring trousers. A problem might look easy to work with, but there can be dozens of hardware and software components to worry about. And fending off each one can take some effort.

You’re smart to buy this book, though, because any audio problem you might experience is fairly easy to solve (relative to, perhaps, something like networking) if you have a bit of persistence and know where to look. And nice guy that I am, I’m going to show you how.

Here are the likely causes of a sound problem when your system gets helenkellered:

• Your sound hardware and how it’s connected.

• A Vista setting needs to be turned on or off or tweaked.

• Your sound card’s driver is out of date, corrupted, or conflicting with other software on your system.

• A missing or corrupt codec (a codec is a device or program that encodes and decodes audio and/or video on your computer).

If I was a betting man (and I am not, but I like those scratch-and-win cards), I could almost guarantee your answer lies within one of the preceding bullet points.

Let’s deal with them one at a time in the order of difficulty. If you’re still scratching your head, it could be dandruff.

Hardware Connection Problems

This one is easy to check. Solving it is merely a case of inspecting your sound card, speakers, and microphone to see that all the relevant plugs are connected to the right holes. Don’t dismiss this, especially if you have cats and small children who like to tug at wires or a spouse who is on the Extreme Vacuuming team.

Check Your Speakers

Make sure your speakers are wired properly. In some setups, the left speaker might have to be attached to the right speaker to work. One or both have to be connected to an amplifier unit if it is part of your setup. They are all in turn plugged into the computer via one or more cables in the connector(s) on your system’s sound card. In simple setups, this is the line-out connector (see Figure 14.1).

Figure 14.1. Here’s a typical sound adapter’s backend and the jack types you can expect to see marked by some weird hieroglyphics.

• Line in—This blue connector is used to attach a CD player, VCR, or other audio source.

• Line out—The green line-out connector is used to attach headphones or speakers that have built-in amplification.

• Microphone in—This connector is pink. It can be used to plug in a microphone or other audio source that needs to be amplified.

• Surround connector—This connector is black. It can be used to attach multichannel–capable speakers that support Dolby 5.1 or 7.1 audio.

• Center/subwoofer—This connector is yellow. It can be used to connect a subwoofer speaker or center speakers in a multichannel kit.

Your speakers or headphones should, as a rule, be plugged in to the line-out connector unless your amplified speaker kit suggests otherwise.

Check Your Sound Card

Make sure your sound card is properly seated inside your computer. If you have had the machine open lately, double-check this.

This is critical if you have a sound card installed in your system, as opposed to what is referred to as an integrated sound adapter (which is a sound chipset in your motherboard).

When I do system maintenance, I often open my machine and do a visual check and, if needed, a wiggle test to see whether any adapter cards have come loose. You can put your thumb on the card and push down to ensure it’s slotted in properly.

As a matter of course once a year, I lift them out, blow away any dust, and reseat them. Ideally you should do this twice a year if you’re a conscientious geek. I also use this as an opportunity to blow away any dust inside the machine with a can of compressed air. You’d be surprised what muck lurks inside the computer. There can be gerbil-sized dust bunnies in there. And if you’re unlucky, an actual gerbil, hopefully still breathing.

How dirty your system gets is a factor of its environment. If you live in an urban area with a lot of airborne grit or particles, you might find that your system gets very dirty. The fan pulls air through the system at a high rate to keep it cool, and if that air is dirty, the inside of your system will be, too. Smokers in your home will also cause your system to accumulate dirt on its insides.

Ensuring That Your Sound Card Is Installed

Check to see whether your sound card is installed, which means ensuring that the necessary drivers for the sound card are installed properly so that Windows knows a sound card is installed in your system. Here’s how:

1. Be sure you are logged on to Vista as an administrator.

2. Launch the Device Manager by clicking the Windows button and typing device manager. When it appears in the Start menu, click it.

3. As is the case any time you open a computer management snap-in, you will get a UAC (user account control) warning screen; click Continue.

4. After the Device Manager window is launched, expand the Sound, Video, and Game Controllers line item entry by clicking the plus sign (+) next to it. If a sound card is listed, you have just verified that you have one installed and that it’s properly installed.

5. If there is a problem, you’ll see an orange/yellow circle icon with a black exclamation point in front of a question mark next to the sound card in your Device Manager list (see Figure 14.2).

Figure 14.2. An alert will show in your Device Manager if your sound card is detected but not working.

To learn more about what’s going on, right-click on the sound card adapter and choose Properties. This will show the Device Properties window and provide you with description of the error.

Working with More Than One Sound Adapter

Most computer systems will have only one sound adapter. However, some have both an adapter built into a motherboard, as well as an add-on card from Creative or Turtle Beach or other sound card maker (if specified as an option when you bought the system).

A common mistake is to plug your speakers or microphone into the wrong sound adapter. So, be sure to check.

To see how many sound adapters are on your system, you can either physically inspect the back or use Vista to do a census for you, as follows:

1. Click the Windows button and type Sound in the Search box.

2. Click Sound when it appears in the Start menu.

3. Under the Playback tab (see Figure 14.3), you’ll see the output devices Vista has found and can use.

Figure 14.3. Vista lists sound output devices on your system in the Sound applet. Make sure your speakers are plugged into the right adapter and the right output jack.

This new tool requires a bit of deciphering. Each sound output device contains a jack that you can plug your speakers or headphones into. Some have more than one sound output jack.

In Figure 14.3, you’ll see that there are three devices.

Two sound adapters are installed on the pictured system. One is integrated into the motherboard, and the other is a Creative X-Fi card attached to a PCI slot on the machine.

They both have a standard line-out jack that you can plug speakers into; however, there’s a third output option showing. But despite appearances, it’s not a third sound adapter. The Creative X-Fi card installed in this sample system has two output options. The first one, as I said, is a standard line out; the second is a SPDIF port.

The bottom line is to make sure you plug your speakers into the right card and the right output jack if more than one shows up in Vista.

To change the default sound device, follow these steps:

1. Click the Windows button and type Sound.

2. Click Sound in the Start menu when it appears.

3. Click the Playback tab, if it’s not selected.

4. The default device will be marked by a green check mark in a circle.

5. To change the default device, right-click on the device you want to make the default and choose Set As Default Device.

Ensuring That Your Speakers Are Powered On

Another frequent audio hardware goof is caused by the On switch. It might seem like a cliché, but make sure the speakers are powered up. This kind of error in geek parlance is called PEBKAC—Problem Exists Between the Keyboard and Chair.

Many speaker configurations these days have a power cable, an On button, and a volume control. Be sure yours are connected and powered up. Also, check to see whether there is a manual volume control. If there is, crank it to halfway (and not to maximum). That’s because if the sound comes on suddenly as you are tinkering, you don’t want to give grandma a heart attack, not to mention yourself.

Checking Hardware Volume Controls

Some machines have a physical volume control as well, especially laptops. So, double-check to see whether that is turned up.

Some have master volume controls for the system, as well as volume controls for the headphone jack, so if external speakers are plugged into that jack, be sure to turn them up.

If you miss one volume control, your machine will remain mysteriously mute.

Also, check volume controls on speakers or amplifier blocks attached to speakers (see Figure 14.4).

Figure 14.4. Are your volume controls turned off? You might have more than one.

And, make sure to inspect your keyboard. Some premium keyboards have a physical volume control. If it’s turned down, it could be thwarting your efforts to hear anything.

Software Volume Controls

Vista has new settings to control your system’s master audio volume, as well as the volume of each application. These should be checked and turned up, too. I’ll show you how to do that in the next section.

Tweaking Your Vista Sound Settings

After all your sound hardware is verifiably working and your computer case is critter-free, you will have to take a look at Vista’s sound settings. The key settings are available by clicking on the speaker icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen in the System Tray.

Start by rolling your mouse over the icon and hovering (see Figure 14.5). It will show the default output device configured on your system, as well as the volume level. In Figure 14.5, the volume is set to 50 out of 100.

Figure 14.5. Roll your mouse over the speaker icon to get a quick look at your volume level and to see which adapter is the default sound device.

A single click will bring up the master volume on the default device (see Figure 14.6). Make sure this is set to at least 50, so that if the sound comes on suddenly, you don’t blow your neighbor out of his backyard hammock.

Figure 14.6. When you click on the speaker icon, you will be able to adjust the master volume control.

Also, ensure that the Mute button is not engaged. If the mute is on, you’ll see a circle with a line through it (like a no smoking sign) on the icon.

If all is well there, or if you need to change the default device or to dig deeper, right-click on the speaker icon.

There are four menu items to choose from, as follows:

• Open Volume Mixer—This shows the master volume, as well as volumes for individual programs using the sound adapter on your system.

• Playback Devices—This is a list of sound devices installed on your system and their status.

• Recording Devices—This shows microphone jacks and microphone devices and each one’s status.

• Sounds—This is to help you adjust Vista sounds. You know, the annoying beeps built into system events.

Setting Software Volume Controls

Now let’s fiddle with the software volume controls. Here’s how:

1. Right-click on the speaker icon in your System Tray on the bottom-right side of your screen.

2. Choose Open Volume Mixer.

3. In the dialog that opens up, there will be a master sound device listed and a list of applications that use sound. Each one has a volume control.

4. Notice that the master volume on the device, when adjusted, affects all the volume levels in applications that use sound (see Figure 14.7). The individual volumes can also be adjusted in each application.

Figure 14.7. Even though the system volume might be at maximum, be sure to check an application’s individual volume setting. Microsoft Flight Simulator X is at zero here.

5. Also, click on the Device menu item. You will see the available devices that can output sound. Be sure you are working with the right one. Nothing is more annoying than adjusting the volume on a sound device that has no speakers plugged in.

If the sound works on some programs but not others, check the application’s volume level in the Volume Mixer to ensure that its volume is turned up to a sufficient level and that the mute is not on.

It’s important to remember that even if the master volume on Vista is set really loud, an application volume might still be muted or set much lower. If you are having trouble with a particular program’s audio, be sure to inspect its individual volume control in the Volume Mixer to make sure it’s turned up, even if the Vista master volume is set to maximum.

Troubleshooting Your Speakers

Vista has no built-in sound troubleshooting wizards, although the Help file is fairly to the point and helpful if you search for “sound troubleshooting.”

There is a small test, however, that generates a sound that you can listen for. To use it, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the speaker icon on the System Tray and click Playback Devices.

2. Take your dog out of the room.

3. Next, right-click on the sound device you want to test (be sure your speakers are attached to it).

4. Click Test (see Figure 14.8).

Figure 14.8. Test each speaker with Vista’s new audio tester; just take the dog out of the room first.

5. Listen for a doorbell sound in each speaker. That means that your sound is working in your hardware and Vista is configured correctly for that device.

6. If the dog barks, the speakers are working, because the dog can hear the Vista-generated ding-dong sound through the door.

Making Vista Sound Better

Even if everything is working and sound is coming out of the right places at the right times, it might not sound as good as you’d like it to sound.

Static-filled or stuttering audio that perhaps sounds like chimps in a vat of Rice Krispies is usually caused by one of three key issues:

• Quality of the audio source

• Audio and speaker configuration

• Codecs

Checking the Audio Source Quality

The quality and resolution of the audio source—whether it’s an MP3 file, WMA file, or a CD or DVD—determines how good the audio will sound when it plays back.

You’ll usually hear about resolution as it relates to pictures. With photos, we count pixels (how many points of picture data) and color depth (how many colors used).

Resolution is equally important in audio; however, we don’t use pixels and colors to measure it. Instead, two terms describe audio quality:

• Sample rate—This is how often over a period of time audio is sampled for a recording. It’s measured in KHz.

• Bit depth—This is the amount of information captured each time audio is sampled. It’s measured in bits.

This combines to give you bitrate, the most important measurement in digital audio. The bitrate (measured in kilobits per second) tells you how much data per second is used to create the recording.

And to really dumb it down, more audio data usually means better audio quality.

Understanding Bitrate

Knowing the bitrate will give you an instant snapshot of the quality of the audio source. Plus, it’ll make you sound like a hipster around the breakfast table. If you are a parent who knows what a bitrate is, your teens will think you’re instantly cool, unless you are wearing your “Fonzie says aaaaay!” T-shirt. I endorse such fabulous fashion choices, but among teens, it instantly disqualifies any hipness you might have otherwise earned.

Most MP3, WMA, and AAC audio files used for music playback will have a bitrate of 128kbps. This is near CD quality. Most people won’t be able to hear the difference between 128kbps audio and CD sound quality unless the music has incredibly intricate nuances in it. People who can tell the difference are former sound engineers or audiologists and posers. People who can’t tell the difference include foghorn operators, roadies for Anthrax, and pretty much everyone else.

The best way to compare a CD and an MP3 file is to play a piece of classical music from a commercial audio CD and then a 128-bit MP3 version ripped from the same CD. Or, if you think Beethoven was a weenie, try “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” as performed by Elton John and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The bottom line is this: The higher the bitrate, the better the quality, but the larger the file size. Often, classical music files have a 160kbps bitrate.

So, if a music file sounds crappy, right-click on it and choose Properties, and then the Details tab (see Figures 14.9 and 14.10) to determine its bitrate. If it’s lower than 128kbps, that’s why it sounds crappy. If it’s higher (perhaps measured in megabits/sec), but still sounds crappy, there’s likely a problem with your playback gear, or the original recording was just really poor (even 320kbps can’t rescue that bootlegged recording of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock that your hippie uncle captured with a tape recorder and a handheld mike).

Figure 14.9. This 55-second MP3 file has a 128kbps bitrate and file size (not shown) of 869kb.

Figure 14.10. This WAV file is high quality. It has a bitrate of 1,411kbps, but also look at the file size—it’s only 26 seconds, but it’s 4.39MB.

There is an exception to this. It’s possible to make a high-quality recording of a low-quality source. Recording music using a high bitrate from your portable radio is not going to give you near CD quality sound. It will be a high-quality recording of your burrito in the microwave, the clock ticking, and the tinny music coming out of the radio’s speaker.

Your best bet is to play back the crappy sounding file (or CD) on another audio playback device, such as an Apple iPod or Creative Zen unit. If it sounds good on that, you know you have some troubleshooting to do on your computer.

Checking Speaker Configuration

If you have a multichannel audio source material, such as a DVD, which supports 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configurations, and you have the equivalent speakers to play it on, be sure to set Vista to the applicable multichannel output. This requires a bit of explanation if you’re new to this kind of thing.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Mono sound is one channel of audio and technically requires only one speaker.

• Stereo sound requires two channels: left and right. Usually, most systems have this two audio channel capability.

• More complex audio requires multispeaker configurations.

• A 5.1 setup consists of a left and right speaker, a center speaker, two speakers to either side of the listener (or, in some cases, just slightly behind), and one subwoofer for low frequency bass sound (see Figure 14.11). Movie explosions on DVDs or in video games take advantage of a good subwoofer. It’ll rumble the room.

Figure 14.11. This is a 5.1 surround sound setup in Vista.

• The subwoofer speaker is the “.1” in 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 speaker configurations.

• A 7.1 surround audio setup is 5.1 but adds two extra speakers, so there’s a speaker on either side of the listener, as well as two left and right speakers behind the listener. A 6.1 system is 5.1, plus one extra rear speaker.

If you have any of these more complex setups on your computer, you’ll want to configure Vista to use them.

Here’s how:

1. Right-click your speaker icon and choose Playback Devices.

2. Set your sound card to which the multiple speaker set is attached as your default device. To do this, right-click on the device and choose Set As Default Device (see Figure 14.12).

Figure 14.12. Set the sound card your speakers are connected to as your default sound device.

3. Next, right-click and choose Configure Speakers.

4. In the Speaker Setup dialog, choose your speaker configuration. Click each one and use the diagrams to guide you. Use the Test button to send test audio to each speaker in a sequence. You can also click the individual speaker icons to test the audio on a specific speaker.

Dealing with Codecs

If I could choose between suffering codecs and or taking a sharp HB pencil up the nostril, I’d choose the pencil.

For the uninitiated, let me explain the joys of codecs, how they can make your life hell, and how to navigate them with asbestos-lined boots.

A codec is short for compressor/decompressor or, to some, coder/decoder. It’s a form of multimedia translator used to either compress or decompress audio and video data.

Movies and music contain large amounts of data, so multimedia-producing companies use codecs to shrink down the content so it fits on reasonable media or can be downloaded quickly so it’s usable for the end-consumer.

A codec is used to compress content for distribution, and when it’s played back, the codec is used to decompress the data stream to its original format.

Codecs work by looking for patterns in data and swapping them out with what’s called a token. So, let’s say a video contains a kitten on a hardware floor; a codec will keep track of all the red pixels (R) in the image that makes up the kitten’s pink nose. Instead of storing 15 red pixels, as an example, like this:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

It stores it like this:

15R

It does the same with the red, green, and blue pixels and the white on the kitten’s belly (see Figure 14.13). As a result, a large frame of video becomes a highly compressed file that takes up a fraction of the space on a CD, DVD, or hard drive.

Figure 14.13. The primary colors in this picture of my cat Biff (as a kitten) can be compressed to make this image smaller when it is a frame in a video.

Now, I used video as an example, but codecs also compress and decompress audio files too. An MP3 codec is used to compress the audio files you listen to on your audio player. A WMA codec is used for the Microsoft Windows Audio files, and an AAC codec is used by Apple and its fans to encode and decode music from iTunes.

Audio Codec Problems

If you try to play a DVD or a movie file, and the video plays but the audio doesn’t, this might seem a bit mystifying.

What’s happening here is the codec on your computer has figured out the video data but can’t deal with audio stream.

It could be that the person who produced the video used a common video codec for the file type but used a funkier or less-known audio codec to encode the audio part of the show.

More common is the problem where the audio plays and the video won’t. Both issues are caused by a system missing the right codecs.

Sometimes codecs handle both audio and video, and sometimes separate codecs are necessary.

If the video plays but the audio is out of sync, this can be a codec problem where video frames were not matched to the audio correctly when the video was encoded, or your decoding codec could be causing the error.

So, the solution to these problems is likely one of three scenarios:

1. Add the missing codec.

2. Update the offending codec.

3. Contact the content creator and ask him to recode the source material, perhaps with an updated codec.

You have control over the first two, and I am going to show you how to deal with them in the next section.

If you suspect #3, all you can do after trying #1 and #2 is to contact the content creator and ask him to recode the multimedia file. If the file is your cousin’s Madonna impression, and it was created by your Uncle Bernie, that’s worth a shot.

If the content creator is Sony Pictures, it might be a little harder to do. If you’re dealing with a large multimedia company, chances are the codec problems are not at their end. Take a look at your own setup and consider updating or replacing your codecs.

Big companies usually have a pretty good handle on codecs, so unless there are widespread complaints about that particular product on Internet discussion forums, assume the issue is on your end.

Audio Codec Fixes

So let’s take a look at where codecs hide on your system and how to figure out what is being used. It’s important to recognize that there is not just one codec on your system. There’s a codec for every audio and video file type. And there are lots of file types. Beyond that there’s more than one codec for each file type.

Most of the time, you’ll be playing audio (or video with audio) using Windows Media Player (see Figure 14.14). Vista ships with version 11 built in. If WMP isn’t your thing (and to my mind, there are better third-party multimedia players out there), you can also play audio using a media player, such as WinAmp, Real Player, or Apple’s QuickTime player.

Figure 14.14. Windows Media Player 11 is the new multimedia player built into Windows Vista.

By default, WMP can handle most of the audio files you’ll want to play, with a few notable exceptions:

• AAC—This audio format developed by Nokia, Sony, and others has been adopted by Apple for iTunes. WMP doesn’t support it. However, the group that created MPEG and MP3 has adopted it as a standard and worked it into the MPEG-4 video standard.

• MOV and M4V—These are video formats that have audio tracks that are used by Apple products such as iTunes.

• OGG—This is an OGG Vorbis file and requires a separate codec or player.

Windows Media Player can play the audio formats shown in Table 14.1.

Table 14.1. Audio Formats Windows Media Player Can Play by Default

Fix #1: Play It Elsewhere

To kick off the codec fixes, let’s try a simple solution first. Try playing the file or disc on another computer or audio player. If this works and the audio sounds good, you know that the source of the problem lies in the codecs on your computer.

Fix #2: Listen on Another Player

Try playing the file or disc on an alternate software media player (see Figure 14.15) if it’s not working in WMP.

Figure 14.15. If it doesn’t work in WMP, try an alternate multimedia player such as Yahoo’s Music Jukebox.

This is the easiest way to fix a simple playback issue because all players install their own codecs, which are usually made available to all compatible players on a computer.

Of course, if an alternate player doesn’t have access to a codec for a specific file type, it won’t be able to play it.

Sometimes players don’t like each other’s codecs or don’t support some of the competing or proprietary file formats. Apple’s iTunes, for example, uses the audio format AAC. On the video side of things, you can’t play MOV files in WMP.

For example, AAC files that play in iTunes, using codecs that come with it, won’t play in WMP.

Table 14.2 shows some audio types supported by different players.

Table 14.2. Alternate Media Players that Solve Missing Audio Codec Problems

When you install a third-party player, the program’s setup routine will configure Windows Vista with the appropriate audio codecs and settings to play them, also making them available to WMP.

I spent a lot of time messing around with Vista, trying to get it to play the open source file format called Ogg Vorbis. I installed the OGG codec pack from vorbis.com, and WMP refused to recognize the .ogg file extension or play a sample file I downloaded from the site (see Figure 14.16).

Figure 14.16. Windows Media Player won’t play some files if no codec is installed to handle the file type.

To solve the problem, I installed the free WinAmp player from winamp.com. Thereafter, OGG files played nicely in the newly installed WinAmp, as well as WMP.

Installing a commercial mega-multimedia suite made by companies such as Roxio or Nero (see Figure 14.17) can install most of the audio and video codecs you need to play the most common file formats.

Figure 14.17. Nero 7 Ultra comes with Nero ShowTime, which plays audio and video files.

Fix #3: DVDs That Play No Audio

Some commercial codec packs available are a good way to fix audio (and, of course, video) problems related to DVDs.

Check out products such as the CinePlayer Decoder and MP3 Player Bundle from Roxio (roxio.com) or MP3+DVD XPack from InterVideo (intervideo.com; see Figure 14.18). They are both priced at about $20, give or take a few pennies.

Figure 14.18. Codec issues related to DVDs can be solved by installing a codec pack from a commercial codec maker such as InterVideo’s MP3+DVD XPack.

That said, if you received DVD or multimedia player software with your computer and never got around to installing it, install it now. These players include common MPEG-2 codecs required for DVD playback, as well as the associated audio component on DVDs. Sometimes it comes with other useful codecs.

Fix #4: Determining Which Codecs You Need

A surefire way to figure out what codec you’re missing is to attempt to play a file and have it fail.

Windows Media Player should trigger an attempt to download missing codecs automatically. To turn on that feature to check to see whether it is enabled, follow this routine:

1. Start Windows Media Player.

2. Classic menus (for some really dumb reason) are turned off by default in WMP11. To enable them, press Ctrl+M.

3. On the classic menus, click Tools, Options.

4. On the Player tab, make sure that the Download Codecs Automatically option is checked.

5. If WMP attempts to play an unknown media file, the player looks online and attempts to download and install a compatible codec (see Figure 14.19), though I am not sure how confident I am in its capabilities (see the related Caution on p. 472).

Figure 14.19. WMP is supposed to check and auto-download codecs from the Internet for codecs it doesn’t have.

In the event that WMP can’t help you, check out my handy guide on p. 511 in Chapter 15 about video codecs, as I list the most common audio and video codecs and where to get them.

That said, if you want to get right to it now, a really great selection of audio and video codecs is available from http://www.afreecodec.com/audio-codecs.php. Go download one—you’ll be enjoying lots of new codec goodness in no time.

Multiple Players = Multiple Problems

One of the areas where sound problems can occur is if you have too many media players on your computer.

Besides Windows Media Player, many third-party media players are available. Table 14.3 shows a brief list of some common players you might encounter.

Table 14.3. Media Players Compared

When installed, media players will compete to control audio-video playback on your computer. As a consequence, they can create conflicts and break your system’s capability to play back media types.

If the wrong media player takes over the playback of media that it doesn’t support, or if it uses a codec that it can’t decode, you can find yourself with playback problems for some file types.

If a player hijacks a file type for which it should be the default player, I recommend you change the file’s association, so next time that kind of file is played, a more suitable player is used.

Here’s how to do that:

1. Right-click on the media file and select Open With, Choose Default Program (see Figure 14.21). (If this doesn’t appear, see related Tip.)

Figure 14.21. Right-click on a media file, choose Open With, and then change the default player.

2. A new window will launch, showing a list of recommended programs, as well as a list of other programs.

3. If a default program is already associated with that file type, it will automatically highlight, and you will see a check mark in the box that indicates Always Use the Selected Program to Open This Type of File.

4. To change the program associated with this file type, select it from the list of options within the Open With window.

Another way to modify the Open With feature is through the Control Panel:

1. Click the Windows button, and in the Search box, type Default Programs.

2. Next, click Associate a File Type or Protocol with a Program. A new window will open, showing a list of file types and protocols (see Figure 14.22).

Figure 14.22. Vista has a handy new tool that makes it easier to change the default application associated with a particular file type.

3. Highlight the file type by clicking it once. You will see what software is set as the default player at the top-left side of the window. To change it, click the Change Program button at the top-right.

4. In the Open With window, select the program you want to become the default and click OK.

5. The next time you open a file of that type, the new default program will open it.

Nothing Worked and I Am Going Bonkers

If you’ve been through this chapter and looked at your settings, speaker, hardware, and driver and nothing works, and you still have an audio issue, consider this extreme tip.

Audio services in Vista need to be enabled and set to run automatically for Vista to produce audio on your system.

Why these would have been turned off is beyond me, but Vista could somehow become corrupt, or some weird bug or rogue or badly designed software (such as spyware) could be implicated.

The reasoning doesn’t matter; it might be a solution you are looking for. So, let’s take a closer look in the hope that it’ll fix your mysterious audio problem.

Check Your Vista Audio Services

Two Windows Vista audio services that allow you to hear audio should be activated when you start your computer.

If they’re not turned on, you will not get any audio output for both Windows sounds and the audio generated from your media players. There are two critical services to check:

• Windows Audio—This manages audio for your programs.

• Windows Audio Endpoint Builder—This manages audio devices for Vista services.

To check whether these services are set to Automatic, follow these steps:

1. Click the Windows button, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Administrative Tools (bottom of the list).

2. Double-click the Services icon.

3. Click Continue (and grumble) when the UAC warning pops open.

4. In the Services window (see Figure 14.23), look for these two line items: Windows Audio and Windows Audio Endpoint Builder.

Figure 14.23. Make sure Windows Audio (highlighted) and Windows Audio Endpoint Builder are running. If they are not, you won’t hear any sound from your system.

5. If they are not set to Automatic, choose Properties, and in the Startup pull-down, change to Automatic and click OK. You can then reboot the system or right-click on the item again and click Restart to stop and restart the service.

If this solves the problem, have a cookie and call out “Long live Ted Gallardo!” Ted is my invaluable forum master at http://forums.cyberwalker.com/forums and found that little tidbit while doing research for me on this book.

Microphone Troubleshooting

Perhaps your speakers work fine, but you can’t for the life of you get a microphone on the system to work. Test 1, 2, 3.

These days, microphones are attached to webcams, VOIP headsets, or simply as an accessory for recording your voice or an external music source.

Vista’s revamped sound applet is designed to make it easier to work with a microphone, so let’s walk through some basic microphone fixes.

Check Your Hardware Setup

First and foremost, check to see that the microphone is plugged into the right jack on your sound card or adapter. It’s easy to plug it into the wrong hole. I have done that many times.

The male and female jacks on mikes are usually pink, so this is a handy way to ensure that the pointy bit is matched with the right hole.

Also, ensure that any volume controls inline on the mike wire or device itself are turned on or up. Many VOIP headsets have hardware mute controls, and if they are on, no sound will register on your system.

Check the Setup and Levels

Right-click on the speaker icon in the System Tray (bottom right) and choose Recording Devices. The Sound applet will open in the Recording tab.

The various microphone sources will be listed. If a microphone is jacked in, it should show “Working” under the device, and a level should show to the right of it.

Note that you will also see a line-in device here, as well as a microphone if your sound adapter has both interfaces.

You’ll also see a level on the right of the microphone entry. When you speak into the mike, this level should show input by bouncing color in the level indicator as you speak (see Figure 14.24).

Figure 14.24. Microphone entries in Vista sound settings have a level indicator so you can see whether they are working.

Tweak the Advanced Settings

You’ll also notice a few buttons at the bottom of the Recording tab. When you select a recording device that is working, these will come active:

• Set Default—If this button is active, the recording device you have selected is not the default recording device on the system. So, ensure that it’s the one you want and set it to default.

• Configure—This button takes you to the Speech Recognition applet in the Control Panel. It can be used to configure your system so that it works with the Speech Recognition function in Vista (see the sidebar for more on this).

• Properties—This is the magic button if you are having trouble. Here’s a tour:

• Under the General tab, be sure Use This Device (Enabled) is selected in the Device Usage pull-down menu.

• Under the Custom tab, if available, click the check box next to Microphone +20dB Boost (see Figure 14.26) to increase the volume level. This is helpful to tweak up the volume from the mike.

Figure 14.26. The Microphone Boost feature in the Advanced tab of the Microphone properties can solve muffled or underamplified microphone problems, especially in applications such as Skype.

• In the Levels tab, you might want to adjust the audio levels up and tweak the balance if input is not at the volume you want or it’s off kilter.

• In the Advanced tab, you can change the quality of the audio when the system is in “shared mode.”

Final Thoughts on Your Microphone

The most common microphone issues in my experience are one of three things:

• Poor quality hardware—A crappy microphone can make audio input or voice recognition a headache. Upgrading to a decent new microphone can make all the difference in the world. If you get lots of static or tinny sound, consider changing out your headset or microphone.

• Driver issues—I’ve also seen situations where the audio drivers appear fine and sound comes out of the speakers, and yet the microphone is not recognized or doesn’t seem to be working. This is resolved by reinstalling all the audio drivers for your sound adapter, especially if you have a higher-end sound adapter from a company such as Turtle Beach or Creative.

• Chipset upgrade—On-board sound adapters that are integrated into the motherboard chipset can cause weird microphone or audio input issues. So an upgrade of the chipset drivers, as well as the sound card drivers (if separate), can fix a microphone or audio input problem that is driving you crazy.