How I Made My Faulty Creative 4.1 Sub-Woofer Speaker Work?

The feeling when you make some faulty thing work will surely make you sit on an iceberg for sure till next sunrise. It was my ‘Creative 4.1’ sub-woofer sound system that made me sit on a mountain today.

It hurts badly for a computer geek when he finds his gadgets failing at abnormal times and they spending dis-functional for an unknown time long. Don’t lift your eyebrow at me, it proves that you got no emotion chipset configured up there in your head.

I have noticed my 6-year-old Creative 4.1 sound system failing to play music in one of the speakers among the four configured. This is how my tests went on:

Test #1: If all the speakers are working fine?

This is the first and foremost test that will decide if the problem persists in speakers. Pull out the faulty speaker(s) and test it inserting into another(working) speaker’s port. If it speaks out, the speaker is good. Congratulations, your problem is not solved yet.

Test #2: If any dust obstructing the connectivity?

You know, dust is as inevitable as death. Check if the speaker ports are dusted. Blow off the dust and try to check connecting back the speakers to the ports. If it works, the job is not over yet. Share your story with us in comments below and that’s a request

Test #3: Should it be opened?

Always believe in yourself, not in Tony Stark in Iron Man. Your homely dress up and geeky mind sometimes fools your identity matching part of your brain. Indeed, opening up the sub-woofer without any knowledge of electronics is not a good idea and can give you ‘shock’ treatments. Though you do, don’t take the risk of opening it without testing it against all cases.

Test #4: If sound drivers are working fine?

The computer also gets sick sometimes. All those software will not wear out stories are not true in case of Windows operating system. Windows is a very unstable operating system. The software might frequently wear out because of malware or viruses.

Check if drivers are affected due to recent virus attacks. Re-install drivers if you had recent experiences of virus cleaning activities on your computer.

Test #5: If the right/left side speakers are muted?

Happens sometimes. Check your driver software or sound settings if the volume is muted on right/left side speakers particularly. This setting can be seen on audio drivers management software like ‘Realtek HD audio manager’.

Test #6: Have you check out every connection?

I don’t think so. You have only checked out the connection between the speakers and sub-woofer. What about the connection between your computer and the sound system?

Now, check the audio jack connecting CPU and sub-woofer. Check if I am in good condition or worn out. Pull them out and blow the dust off the ports and insert them again. If you have a number of slots than the number of pins, try changing the combination and test the speakers again. Congratulations if it works. If it’s not, decide a date and time to call a technician.

By the way, the last test made my faulty speaker work like before. otherwise, I would have opened the sub-woofer in excitement to check what’s inside. Excitement blindfolds the intelligence sometimes. Believe me!