Mark L. of Beaverbrook Ct, your problem had me stumped for just a a few seconds. Seemed as if the switch on your speakers was busted … but luckily I always try to have my own laptop handy, and could rule that out.
Lucky for you, your computer had two sound cards. An on-board Realtek, and an add-on C-Media card. Seems like the add-on card was dead, so it was good to be able to move to the on-board. Of course we could have replaced the c-media card, with another, but since you simply want to hear the normal computer sounds, the on-board Realtek sound card, should be just fine.
A day in the life of a computer repair tech 