Today's special - Lightning fried soundcard

[indian airlines]

Was that episode of Grey's Anatomy downloaded illegally?

No.

[Cam]

Was that episode of Grey's Anatomy downloaded illegally?

[Airbus_A320]

If it's part of the motherboard, it can't be removed. It's fine to have it there, it wont do anything.

[MaxPower]

Oh thats a relief to hear it wasnt fried after all. Only disturbed when it passed.

You just have to select it as your default device in sound options. And plug your headphones into it. Only thing is, it won't work with the onboard laptop speakers.

Doesnt he has to remove the onboard soundcard, or can he just let it be in the latop ?

[Airbus_A320]

Thanks for that link. So basically if I use this external soundcard in my CardBus slot, it will override the soundcard on the motherboard?

EDIT: A little update on the situation. This morning while the thunderstorm was still going strong, the audio was garbled just like last night. Right now though, now that the thunderstorm has passed, the audio is working just fine.

So it probably wasn't anything to do with my soundcard, but was closer to what Pamela said - that is was the electrostatic field of lightning messing around with stuff.

It's still good to know about the external soundcard slot though incase the integrated one does die on me at some point.

Yea it does, you just have to select it as your default device in sound options. And plug your headphones into it. Only thing is, it won't work with the onboard laptop speakers. You have to have external ones, but from what you said before it seems like have external speakers already?

[indian airlines]

If it's integrated, thats it, you can't just get that part of the mobo replaced.

Try this though: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102185
This is the one that I use for my laptop.

Thanks for that link. So basically if I use this external soundcard in my CardBus slot, it will override the soundcard on the motherboard?

EDIT: A little update on the situation. This morning while the thunderstorm was still going strong, the audio was garbled just like last night. Right now though, now that the thunderstorm has passed, the audio is working just fine.

So it probably wasn't anything to do with my soundcard, but was closer to what Pamela said - that it was the electrostatic field of lightning messing around with stuff.

It's still good to know about the external soundcard slot though incase the integrated one does die on me at some point.

[Airbus_A320]

If it's integrated, thats it, you can't just get that part of the mobo replaced.

Try this though: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102185
This is the one that I use for my laptop.

[pdeboer]

What you described seems like electrical noise or thermal noise which is generated by the electronic circuits themselves. You normally do not hear this when you are listening to music or other audio, it disappears in the background.
It could be that the output of the sound card is still working, but that something in the input or processing part is damaged. Perhaps one of the converter is not working properly, due to the electrostatic field of the lightning. Lightning can induce strange thing with electronic stuff.

However, my experience is that even when only a small part of the electronics is damaged, you always seem to need to buy a complete new one Have no experience with integrated sound cards though.

cheers, Pamela

[MaxPower]

Dude that sucks. Its one of those where you think it wont never happen to you and bang! It got ya. Try to call your Dell's Hotline number, ask them what to do, send it to them, if they dont do damages that was caused by nature, try the local photoshop, although it is kinda hard, if not you need also to slap some b1tches out for an integrated soundcard for laptops as they dont sell it as a single part ? Good luck !

[ASpilot2be]

Sorry to hear that I have always had second thoughts about thunderstorms.

[indian airlines]

To make a not so long story short, I was watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy on my laptop in peaceful bliss at 2:00 AM in the morning with a raging thunderstorm outside, and all of a sudden I see a bright flash of lightning coupled with an intense peal of thunder all of which sounds as though it's about 10 feet away from me. The next thing I know, I'm still watching the aforementioned episode, but I'm hearing nothing except static hum in my headphones (which btw I was using to listen to the audio if it wasn't already clear).

So by then I was a little freaked out since I had no prior experience dealing with lightning fried anything, and I wasn't even sure if it was the lightning that had caused this loss of audio, but it seemed too coincidental to have been anything else and I figured it was probably an electric surge that fried either my speakers, headphones or soundcard. So I tested my headphones on something else - they worked fine. Then I tried listening to audio on my computer without the headphones, and still all I'd hear was faint audio with a whole lot of disturbance. Anyway, so my speakers seem to be fine because I hear the same thing in them as I do in my headphones, so I think it's my soundcard that's been owned by the lightning-induced surge.

Here's the wierd thing though, even with the volume muted, I hear this static hum in my speakers and headphones, which is really wierd because I don't know what's producing the sound.

Another thing, my laptop is a Dell Inspiron 600M - I think it has an integrated soundcard. Is there any possible way to get the soundcard repaired/replaced without having to buy a whole new laptop?

I used to like thunderstorms once upon a time (actually till about an hour back)...now I'm having second thoughts.

-Tanuj.