a few days ago, sound stopped working on my laptop. I'm starting to suspect that it's a hardware problem, but since I'm not an expert when it comes to hardware, I'm not sure how to go about proving whether it's a software or hardware issue. Can anybody give me any pointers on where to start looking? If it were a desktop, I'd just try swapping in a new sound card, but I'm not sure what to do on a laptop. The basic symptom is that the music player acts like it's playing stuff, but no sound comes out, either from the built-in speakers or the headphone jack. Does anybody know of a definitive way to prove whether it's a hardware or software issue? By the way, I'm running Ubuntu Dapper on a HP zv6000 series laptop. Thanks, Jonathon