today I tried playing a cd on my pc as I often do. I could not hear the music. When I had my ear really close to the speakers, I could tell the music was playing, but ever so quietly. What could be the matter? It was working fine last night.
Don't forget that there is more than one volume control on your system. The little speaker on your taskbar will lead you to a properties panel for your audio input and output devices. So, although you may have turned up the "mechanical" volume control on your speakers, have you checked the software volume settings too ?
The speaker system itself often has an "on/off" switch and a volume control that resets itself on shut down occasionally. Mine has two small switches on top of one speaker that, when pushed at the same time, turns the speakers on or off, but independently controls the volume... Check that...
Many thanks for the replies. Last night I went to Control Panel / Sound; it was NOT on mute. The volume was about half way. I turned it up to maximum. Last night it made no difference at all. This morning, without further action from myself, I can hear music again, albeit a bit louder than before. I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, was wrong yesterday and why it is working again. Thank you very much for the replies anyway.