Today when I tried to play a CD on my computer nothing happened. Can you help me please?

A few different culprits could be interfering with your CD's failure to play including a damaged disc, a missing file association, or a muted sound card setting. Let's take a quick look at each and hope that your problem is easy to solve.

Damaged CD Disc

First, let's consider the possibility that the disc could be damaged or blank. Does the CD play properly in a CD player or a different computer? Has the CD played fine in your current computer in the past? Do other CDs play in your current computer? If the problem is intermittent with some CDs playing but others not, then the computer is likely fine and the disc damaged or blank.

Music File Associations

However, if you insert a CD into your computer and nothing happens at all - including no media playing launching - then a missing file association could be the problem. Typically when a CD is inserted into the CD player, the computer recognizes that the disc contains music files and then launches your default media player automatically. If the default program for music files has been changed or removed altogether, then your computer won't know which program to load in order to play the CD.

To fix this in Windows, go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > AutoPlay. Make sure that there's a checkmark in the "Use AutoPlay for all media and devices" box, and find the Audio CD entry. Choose "Play Audio CD using Windows Media (or your desired player if listed). Click Save.

Sound Card Settings

Another common cause involves muted sound. If a media player launches and the software appears to be working (but no sound comes through the speakers), check to see if the volume has been muted. Go to the lower right corner of your taskbar and click the icon that looks like a speaker. You should see a sliding bar that you can slide up and down. If the bar is all the way down, you won't hear anything from your speakers.

Another issue involves a missing sound card driver. Sometimes after updating Windows and other hardware, the sound card driver disappears. Go to Control Panel > Device Manager and see if the icon for your sound card shows an error indicator. If so, open that item, click the Driver tab, and click the Update Driver button. After updating the driver, reboot your computer.

Hopefully the problem is minor and easily fixed by re-enabling AutoPlay, adjusting the volume, or reinstalling the driver.

Celeste Stewart | March 24th, 2011
Tags: CD doesn't play, no sound, sound card
Categories: Multimedia

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