sound problems- only plays from one side with good speakers and sound card?

Well I have a set of Logitech Z-2300 speakers hooked up to the onboard AC97 audio of the mobo in my sig, and just within the last week, the left speaker makes no sound at all.



So I thought the speakers were messed up, but I hooked the system up to another computer and had nice stereo sound.



So then I thought my onboard audio was screwed, so I threw an old Soundblaster card in there and hooked up the speakers again....left side is dead.



So I thought, ok the sound card is screwed....tried the same sound card in another computer, with the same speakers....nice stereo sound...



Both times the Soundblaster was installed using the default XP Pro drivers.



Any thoughts? I am completely stumped by this one.

I'd say it's probably the speakers. Perhaps they are slowly dying? Do you have some other speakers/headphones to try when your computer just plays though the right channel.

I forgot to mention the exact same thing can be replicated with 2 different sets of headphones.



If I plug them into my computer only the right side works, take them over to my moms and both sides work, same when the soundcard is installed.



Also the balance settings are set properly.



Downright baffling isnt it?

Yeah...quite strange... Have you tried doing a system restore or windows recovery? If two sound cards give you problems, I guess it's just software. I guess it could still be hardware(as in your mobo dying) but it seems some PCI sound card would work rather independent of the motherboard...

well...I hate to even post this, because to me it's very embarassing.



I was only doing this testing using Windows Media Player....and I kept overlooking the fact that the balance was set to play full right for whatever reason.



Im officially a dumbass, thank you for your time

I was JUST about to suggest that...then i read it. Nice going