Watch out for muting by computer keyboard

[BlackBurst]

If your computer keyboard has multimedia keys/buttons then the volume or mute keys/buttons (or both) could have muted your audio.

I ran into this problem tonight and it took me quite a long time to figure out what the source of the problem was because there is no easy way to visually see if they have been activated or not.

A telltale sign is if some ASIO-based audio programs produce sound, but other programs that use basic Windows sound don't or if the sound is too quiet.
Multimedia keys/buttons look like this and are usually at the top edge of the computer keyboard with icons:



There are also the internet keys/buttons or perhaps other specialized keys/buttons:

The way that I identified the problem and solved it was to play a long audio file in Windows Media Player with Visualisations turned on. The Visualisations let me know that the system was generating and registering an audio signal at least some level. While the Visualisations were bouncing around I messed with the volume up and mute keys until I got my sound back to normal.

On my Gateway keyboard, the mute key has an icon that looks like a speaker with a line crossing it out. The volume up key also has a speaker icon on it.

Anyways I realise that this only solves a minority of audio problems but at least it's something to consider when troubleshooting.

One tricky thing to keep in mind. If this wasn't the source of your problem, it's still important to remember and check periodically because there's no easy to glance at evidence of if the audio is muted or turned down or not by these types of keys. You could have a situation where your drivers aren't working correctly because of a hardware conflict and at the same time have accidentally pressed the mute key. In that case you'll need to solve the hardware conflict AND remember to check the mute key AND check the volume up key. Instead of being muted, the volume could just be turned all the way down.