Yesterday I was using my computer and the sound, left it alone, and then a couple hours later I came back and the sound refused to work. I tried updating the drivers, didn't help. I unplugged it and powered it on again, didn't help. I disconnected the sound card and tried to run off the motherboard, didn't help. I figured that the card wasn't the problem then and placed headphones into a jack on the volume control which connects to the system/subwoofer. Sound came perfectly through the headphones. This seems to me like the system itself is what's not working and that I'll need to replace it. unfortunately I have limited funds and would really like to test this problem further to see if there is anything else that could be the problem. I would really appreciate suggestions as to what I can do to further assess this problem or what else might be the problem.
Here's my computer. I put it together about 1-1.5 years ago when I wanted to try out the AM2+ line. I haven't changed the sound at all since building this and it's worked fine since.
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 PCI Interface
Sound System: Creative Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speaker
OS: Vista Ultimate 32bit SP2
Processor: AMD Phenom 8750 Toliman 2.4 GHz Socket AM2 95W Triplecore
Video Card: Radeon HD 3870 512 MB 256-Bit pci ex 2.0
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 PC2 8500
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+/AM2
Power: 500W