For no apparent reason, the sounds on PokerStars no longer work properly on my computer.. the only sounds that work are the "Information" ding sound for when you register in a donkament, and the "warning" sound which occurs when a tournament you registered for pops up and begins

all the other sounds, bet, fold, and the timeout warning etc. simply don't play

options->sounds is checked, I've gone to Sound Settings and clicked Reset to default sounds and they are still screwy

weird thing is, in the sound settings screen there is an option to customize and preview each sound. again the only ones that work when you hit "play" are the information and warning ones. even if I customize the other sounds to a custom wav file they won't play in this dialog box or the software client

I've uninstalled and reinstalled pokerstars from scratch, and also there was a recent software update which didn't fix my problem. I haven't emailed their support about this yet, but thats my next choice I guess if no one here has any ideas

I'm running on Vista, which includes a software volume mixer which which you can customize the volume of any running application, but even turning pokerstars volume all the way up doesnt do anything except make stars play the 2 sounds its capable of really loudly

guess I shoulda just emailed support when it first happened, I got a quick reponse with the fix:

We have received a handful of reports such as yours regarding sound
synchronization issues on Windows Vista systems. At this time we believe
this issue to be caused by a buggy Vista feature that attempts to simulate
surround sound on ordinary stereo speakers, when used in conjunction with
integrated sound systems of certain motherboards. Of note are AC97 sound
systems by Realtek, integrated into many ECS, Asus, and Abit
motherboards.

You may disable this surround sound emulation in Vista using these steps:

1) Right-click the speaker icon in the system tray (lower right)
2) Select "Playback Devices"
3) Select "Speakers" and then choose "Properties"
4) Choose the "Enhancements" tab
5) Check the box that says "Disable all enhancements"
6) Click "Apply", and then "OK" to close the dialog(s)

This should return your sound to normal while playing in a PokerStars game.

Good luck in your games, and thank you for playing on PokerStars.

You rock Valhalla, thanks for giving me my pokerstars sound back

Worked for me also, brilliant. Thanks for the support!

omg that worked for me too

you are a genius

ok guys i have the same problem i cant here the cards going to players . i hear some but not all, i tried going to speakers and enhancements but still have no sound. i have a acer laptop i bought last year and i have sent in over 32 emails to stars support and they have no answer. i sent over 15 emails to acer and they have no clue. i took it to qeek squad in future shop and showed him my problem and he had no clue. i am going crazy here. i will be supernova in 9 days but this has got to be fixed. i have lost many hights of sleep of this issue, please HELP
i am offering a cash reward to anyone who helps me
maybe i hit something along time ago in my sound options, how to i restore my sound to when i bought it ? maybe that will help
thanks
doylleee
help help help

Thank you.

This worked for me! Thanks!

What happened is that I set my quadraphonic speakers to 5.1 surround sound, disabled the centre channel, and then enabled "speaker fill".

I did all that to ensure my music would play on all 4 speakers. It definitely worked, except it seemed to disable the sounds in Pokerstars.

Putting everything back to quadraphonic speakers but still keeping "speaker fill" on seemed to keep the Pokerstars sound working.

Support was right that that it had to do with the sound driver attempting to emulate surround sound.

Thanks so much, was starting to tilt me