I recently had issues with getting dvds to play correctly on my computer-- the program would crash. I reinstalled a few things- dvd decoder, etc- and now it plays them fine. however... now i cant hear anything. It is not a broken sound card-- it will play mp3s normally. it just will not play the audio for dvds. Is there a setting i need to change? or a driver i need to update?

You don't give much background info about your system, so it's hard to pinpoint possible causes. But (at the risk of stating the obvious - which it's sometimes easy to overlook!) ...

01. Is your DVD drive connected via an audio cable to your sound card or mobo? If not, have you checked in (route valid for WinXP) My Computer > (right click) DVD Drive > Properties > Hardware > (left click) DVD Drive > Properties > Properties > 'Enable digital ...'? (or check 'Volume' level?)

02. In your DVD software's (settings correct for WinDVD) right click menu as you play a DVD, it isn't inadvertently set to 'Mute', or the 'Adjustment' for Volume set to zero?

first, i'd like to thank you for taking the time to respond to my question:)

Okay, before this, it would play a dvd for a bit, then freeze and crash no matter what media program i was using, and the sound worked fine. i reinstalled a few things with the dvd drive, and now it will play them fine, but the sound doesnt work now, no matter what program i use, and i've checked every volume lvl that i can find. I also have on board sound, so I dont know if i have to install drivers for that to update it?

as specified as i can get, let me know if you need to know anything else:

SAMSUNG Beige 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE Combo Drive
AMD Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle 800MHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 754 Processor
EPoX EP-8KDA3J Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb ATX AMD Motherboard
eVGA Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card

Hiya.

01. It would be helpful to know what operating system you are using (so that the interface route to changing settings can be correctly described).

02. Do you have Windows Media Player installed, and is that able to play all media (apart from the DVD sound?)

03. How old is the PC, and is it under warranty still? If yes, can you open up the case without invalidating the warranty? If yes, do you feel confident enough to do that ie investigate the internals?

04. The important thing, in troubleshooting, is to be logical and methodical, and to establish a standard test setup, and then only check one thing at a time.

05. From the information already supplied, though, there appears to be nothing wrong with your overall sound setup (eg you can play MP3s from your hard drive.) Can you confirm, though, that you have onboard audio only, or do you have a sound card as well. If so, what is it?

06. Apparently, the CD/DVD drive is the problem. Have you checked the issue re enabling digital audio for that drive? There's no point in going further, until that is known.

i'm using XP Pro.

yes, i have windows media player installed and it works

the PC is about 5 months old and was pieced together. there is no warranty on the entire thing, just the pieces

just onbound sound, no sound card

how do i re-enable the digital audio?

To check digital audio is enabled, go to Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > View > Devices By Type

Find your CD/DVD drive in the list, right click on it, then select Properties > Properties

This may only matter if you don't have an audio cable, going from the back of the drive, to a connector on the mainboard.

Can you play CD audio in the drive?

yeah i can play CD audio in the drive

Also, digital CD audio is enabled, and the CD player volume is at full. Is it possible that i need to update the drivers?

i did find something i was curious about... i was checking out the settings in windows media player... and when i went to DVD tab>> properties I clicked on the CLMEI-2 tab and it showed up greyed out.... i couldnt select anything. I was wondering if this means anything?