Audio problem in W7 (no sound)

Hello,

Two hours ago I plugged a sound wire from the PC to my LCD TV.
And after I unplagged it I had some problems in my PC, I dont know why.. so I restarted. After the restart I had an icon of a speaker with a red "X" next to it..
It sais " Audio output device is not installed"
I dont know how that could happen.. I didn't change anything in the properties or something like that.. Just plugged a wire that splits to red and white to my LCD TV.

When I try to watch a movie or listen to music in Windows Media Player, it sais it can't play because I have no sound intalled.

I downloaded a sound driver for my motherboard and it didn't help
I even tried to restore to 12 hours back, and it didn't help either.

Please help me, I am hopeless..

Could something have gotten bumped a bit? Open up the case, and make sure all components, particularly the sound card, are seated firmly. It may help to unplug/disconnect them and plug them back in.

Another place to go to is in the Control Panel>Playback tab to configure the output. If Windows refreshed itself to the default speakers the sound mixer would reflect that and see the output disabled.

Typically you run into this type of problem with usb headsets as well where you then have to set them as the default in order to hear sound and not end up with it still coming from the speakers.

I dont think the problem is in the settings.
I have two operation systems (XP and W7), the problem happened in W7 so I switched to XP.. everything looks fine in XP, I can control the speaker volume and open Windows Media Player..
But when I play a song or a movie, I still can't hear them..
(I forgot to tell that when the speakers are plugged in they make a static like sound.. after the problem..)
I can hear the song in very very low volume.. actually I can't really hear it, but I can tell something is playing..

I tried plugging to the green port,black port and orange port, non of them works... And I tried with my headphones as well..

Jonathan, I dont think I have a sound card, isn't it built on the motherboard?

Night Hawk, Thank you, but I dont think it's something with the settings.


Thank you for trying to help me :)

edit:
well, I pressed some connection inside the computer, near the plugs and switched to W7.
I dont have the red "X" near the speaker's icon anymore..
But my headphones and speakers make a horrible noisy sound..
I played a song and I really can hear it when I hear on maximum volume.. but the statitc sound or whatever that is, is so noisy..
What can it be?

The sound mixer most likely. You can have the volume all the way up and all you will hear is static unless the signal is turned up as well. Sounds like something is still disabled there in the mixer like Auxillery.

When plugging speakers in while powered up you will always tend to hear something right off namely the instant contact with the live signal which tends to overload for a brief second the processing of the signal suddenly being input. This is seen with any type of audio input into amplification.

The second orange jack will depend on the speaker settings more then anything if the jack is in good shape. There's no signal being sent out if the sound mixer/speaker settings are set for headphones or stereo. When switching to 2 1/2, 4, 5.1, or 7.1 surround then you should hear something maybe not as loud from the rear or center mix jack.

Well you mentioned pressing "something" and then the sound started working which makes you wonder if a connection problem is present but being picked up more while booted in 7. That's when you saw the X disappear there.

The swap between speakers and then headphones would seem to point at a problem on the board possibly a contact arcing or a cold solder point picking up some IF which would account for the popping sounds you heard. When first starting up everything still needs to warm up where a cold solder point wouldn't have pushed anything away from the board until later.

You may have to consider a separate sound card if the onboard is the source. The mixer and volume controls are strictly software there depending on the hardware side.