Multimedia is definitely not my strong point. My uncle gets sound OK from audio CDs and can watch movies (but the sound does NOT play)! So he can see the Wizard of Oz but cannot hear "...follow the yellow brick road"! Win98 and DirectX 8.1 are installed and PowerDVD (uninstalled and reinstalled).

DeviceManager (Sound, Video and Game Contollers) showed "crystal sound fusion tm" and "crystal sound fusion wdm interface". Which I got him to remove from Device Manager and which were reinstalled OK on rebooting.

Any good pointers of how to further troubleshoot/solve this problem would be much appreciated.

Paul.....

Just curious. Does this unit use a
De-Coder Card for DVD movie functionality?



RD.

LOL Ranchdog :D I said I was dunce at multimedia - all I'm used-to is simple on-board sound; for music I use a HiFi. So I have no idea of what a de-coder card even is. :(

But if you tell me how to find out I'm eager, and always willing, to learn.

Ran dxdiag and there was no Sound Tab visible! Would I be correct in thinking this makes it likely to be a case of getting the correct/updated drivers.

Paul, drivers may be it. But try going to sounds and multimedia in control panel. In the devices tab, check your sound devices properties and see if the "use this device is checked".Like "wave audio device" and cd audio device in media devices, and audio mixer.
Also try the troubleshooter for sound in dxdiag (I'm sure you have anyway)

One of my problems is dealing (long-distance) with my not very pc-literate uncle. I now know that its an IBM Thinkpad with on-board sound. Just about everything in ControlPanel(Sounds and Multimedia) was greyed and the Vol Control Icon couldn't be activated or seen.

PowerDVD was uninstalled prior to reinstalling - but now it's CD key has been mislaid!! :(

When I know for sure which Thinkpad model it is I'm sure I can get the up-to-date drivers from IBM. Getting them installed properly by uncle may not be so easy. Hopefully that will sort things out. It seems increasingly likely that this is the root of the problem. Thanks for the replies, but any other thoughts would be most welcome - if only for my own education.

BTW does the "sound" from a DVDmovie come under Sound or Music or MIDI - I anticipate it's not that simple. :D

Ranchdog I have done some homework and now understand that the decoders can be hardware or software. There is no decoder card installed; the decoding was done by PowerDVD.

Since video could be watched but not heard I guess this means that the decoding had been successful. What I don't know is what happens to the audio component once the "MPEG-2" format of a DVD video has been decoded.

Thanks malcore will check those out once the settings are no longer greyed.

Does anyone know what "format" this sound would be in (or could be more than one type) and whether it needs to run through a midi synthesiser - or would the sound card normally handle all of this?

The sound card should handle all of this. DVD does play sound back in many formats, mpeg 1, mpeg 2,PCM, etc, etc which your sound card should handle. They also play in Dolby digital, which Power DVD will decode.

Is everything related to sound in device manager greyed out?

Sorry, you said control panel. If this is all greyed out, does the machine play any sounds at all, cd,etc.?

LOL :D Yes - that was the original paradox. CD audio is fine but you have to lip-read the DVDmovie! These are both proprietary and not DIY media.

LOL! Paul, you have me stumped on this one. Can't figure out how you can get any sound and your audio options in control panel are completely greyed out.
I have an IBM Thinkpad too, but it is circa 1990, with 8Mb Ram and running Windows 3.1, not even a cd rom!:D...makes a good paperweight now

Is this a combo DVD drive? or two separate drives?

Just one combo DVD-ROM drive. Perhaps its just lonely! :D