I have a Creative Sound Blaster Z OEM PCI-ex sound card. About 2 weeks ago I watched a DVD on my computer and after that my sound was not working right. I used headphones so I unplugged them and tried the speakers which seemed to work fine. I plugged the headphones back in and opened up my sound card control panel and clicked around and the sound started working right again but I don't know what I clicked on that helped and today I unplugged the headphones to try a different pair. When I plugged the original pair back in, my sound isn't working right again but I can't get it working right. I can hear but it seems like the sound is coming from off in the distance, some sounds a little tinny. Any suggestions for what setting affects this?

Since I don't have a Sound Blaster Z, I can only guess that the card is supposed to auto-detect what you plugged into it -- headphones or speakers. Speakers normally don't need amplification from the sound card, while headphones do. So make sure what's listed in the sound card's control panel is headphones and not speakers.

Do the other headphones still work?
Is it only the first set of headphones that aren't working?

Well, the new set seems to sound right. But I want to keep the new set for my new computer. I just don't get why watching a movie caused the original pair a problem and why unplugging them also caused a problem, or why/how it got fixed before and they've been fine again until now. They are cheap headphones but still, it's weird to me.

There was one other thing that happened after watching that DVD that I thought was the problem until it fixed itself. One of my wonderful little cats got her teeth onto the headphone cord. Maybe it was her!

The music sounds okay as far as I can tell. Just the voices and other sounds are quiet and in a distance.

It's possible there's a break in the headphone cable, causing an intermittent connection.
Since they were cheap anyway, I'd just get new headphones. At worst you'd have a spare set.


If it doesn't happen with the other headphones, it could still be a break, or partial break, in the cable.

Okay, thanks Jenny! Maybe I'll be able to get them working right again. We'll see.

A partial break is also my suspicion. If it was total, you would have dead silence.

The other question is whether you are plugging into a front panel port or directly into your sound card in the back. Assuming it's the front panel port on your computer case, there also may be a problem with that port or its connection to the motherboard.

Plugged into the sound card in the back. Probably was the cat as I first suspected. I haven't tried it in front yet to see.