When it is very late, and I am working on the computer, I enjoy listening to cd's using headphones. This past week though I could no longer hear anything using the headphones. I tried another pair to make sure the problem was in the pc. The motherboard (ABIT BH7) has onboard sound and I use either a Creative 52X CDROM or LiteOn 52X cdwriter. Sound is just fine if I turn on the speakers. Where should I begin trouble shooting this?

Where do you plug the headset into? The front of the CD-ROM and writer? Or elsewhere? Are they full sized jacks (1/4") on the headphones and adapted to mini jack (1/8")? Could be the adapter if this is the case.

Try speaker out but put the output low (about 1/4 max) prior to doing it.

What OS? Have you made any recent changes to your system?

:-) Should have checked the headphones more closely. A kitten with very sharp teeth can do in two sets of headphones and have the damage almost imperceptle.