PC repair nightmare...

I lost sound, it seemed to happen when I was using an IM client. However I'd not usually turn on my speakers unless I'd otherwise chosen to watch films or listen to music.

When it happened I'd reboot, sometimes that cured it. Temporarily. Other times it would work for hours.

If it persisted I'd mess around with the driver options. I'd strip the driver. I'd go and roll back to a generic driver. Sometimes sound would return quickly after this - other times it wouldn't.

I stripped and reloaded my IM program, paying careful attention to audio options.

Even swapped out my audio cable. Tested my speakers on my netbook to make sure they worked there. Everything checked out fine.

In short, nothing solved the problem. It would come and go with an apparent mind of it's own - I eventually scanned my file system and even did a repair installation.

Nothing changed. I began to suspect my motherboard or it's audio ports as having a developing fault. I even strapped a thermal probe onto the sound chip and threw a peak voltage tester onto the PSU.

It happened again tonight, mid IM convo. I could find no reason, as usual.

I decided to whack some headphones into the front port, obviously the quality of the audio on that port is worse - but it worked.

Fact is I was ready to spit my dummy.

My speakers are rather pricey Studio Monitors by Samson, and after I'd finished my IM convo I decided to try running them from my netbook, and they worked OK, but I wandered off to make a brew... and when I came back it slowly dawned on me there was no sound coming from the netbook.

I pulled out the audio lead, and instantly the netbooks onboard sound came to life. Tried the Samsons again. Silence. Swapped the cable. You could still hear a pin drop.

They're 100+ watts. I never turn the volume up above 20% of that as my eardrums would be minced meat. On the main speaker there's an AC power cord, a heatsink for the amplifier, and a couple of small filter switches for crossover options.

Heatsink was hot, perhaps 70°c. Too hot to touch for long. As soon as the temperature dropped below 45°c the sound would come back to life. When the sound wasn't working if I boosted everything I could muster from the audio chip then, with all 120+ watts on tap, I could just hear a tinny little bit of audio feed through the cones.

So it was an intermittent temperature related fault. Anyway, the reason for posting this is just to mention that no matter how hard you go looking for a fault, always consider the over-obvious as much as the most improbable...

The other reason is to ask whether anyone else has had Samson Resolvs do this. They're just out of their 36 months warranty, cost a lot of money, and have had very little use.

Something else to chalk up to (expensive) experience...

If only there was even room in "my office" for one! :)

I might well do just that, good thinking! However they're manufactured in the good old US of A and I bought mine in Germany, and just to complicate matters I have a feeling there was a 36 months EU warranty but only 24 months had they been purchased here in the UK.

The particular model I purchased is no longer manufactured, however they're still amazing units. I was always a tad alarmed with the heatsink temperature on them remaining hot, even at idle.

I'll have to try and find a schematic for them, and perhaps find a competent local TV repair outfit who might be able to replace internal components which have failed, economically.

Am still gutted they've failed so early...