No Sound When Attempting to Play Any Audio CD

Affected Products: Desktop Computers, Servers, Destination® PCs
Affected Operating Systems: Windows NT® 4.0, Windows® 2000, Windows® 98 SE, Windows® Me, Windows® XP

ISSUE: When attempting to play any audio CD, you will receive no audio. This can occur with any type of sound card and optical drive that you may be using such as a CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, or DVD-RAM drive. This occurs mainly with computers shipped with no audio cable connected between the motherboard and sound card (this can include motherboards with integrated sound chipsets).

RESOLUTION:
  1. Ensure that the WDM audio drivers are installed for the sound card or the integrated audio chipset on the motherboard. If you are unsure if the audio driver is WDM, install the latest drivers available.

  2. Verify that "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM drive" is selected under the optical drive properties.

    Windows XP Home and Professional

    • From the Start menu, click Control Panel.
    • In Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.
    • In the System Properties dialog box, click the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager.
    • Double-click the DVD\CDROM drives category.
    • Double-click the appropriate optical drive.
    • In the Properties dialog box for the appropriate optical drive, click the Properties tab.
    • Verify "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM drive" is selected under the optical drive properties.

    Windows 2000

    • From the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
    • In Control Panel, double-click the System icon.
    • In the System Properties dialog box, click the Hardware tab.
    • On the Hardware tab, click the Device Manager button.
    • Double-click the DVD\CDROM drives category.
    • Double-click the appropriate optical drive.
    • In the Properties dialog box for the appropriate optical drive, click the Properties tab.
    • Verify "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM drive" is selected under the optical drive properties.

    Windows Me

    • From the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
    • In Control Panel, double-click the System icon.
    • In the System Properties dialog box, click the Device Manager tab.
    • Double-click the DVD\CDROM drives category.
    • Double-click the appropriate optical drive.
    • In the Properties dialog box for the appropriate optical drive, click the Properties tab.
    • Verify "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM drive" is selected under the optical drive properties.

    Windows 98

    • From the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
    • In Control Panel, double-click the Multimedia icon.
    • In the Multimedia Properties dialog box, click the CD Music tab.
    • Verify "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM drive" is selected under the optical drive properties.

    Windows NT 4.0
    Windows NT 4.0 does not support the "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM" feature that is available in other operating systems. If you do not have an audio cable between the sound card or motherboard with integrated audio and the optical drive, please contact Gateway technical support. If you have two optical drives, the cable can only connect to one optical drive. You must select which optical drive audio CDs will be played in.

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