The Sound of Silence

Speakers are cheap, so I got a pair.  Did not solve the sound problem, but they are little and cute. No sound comes out of them.

On a Windows Xp machine, when you look at the list of sound devices, what should you see?

I see:
Optiarc DVD
Realtek High Definition Audio
Audio Codecs
Legacy Audio Drivers   
Media Control Devices
Legacy Video Capture Devices
Video Codecs

When I look at "properties" for each of these (except the first two) the location is "unknown" and the manufacturer is "standard system devices."  That's bad, isn't it? Doesn't that sound like the computer is not actually finding any of these things? But each thing is supposedly working correctly, according to Windows.

I have tried to get the computer to find the speakers -- the old ones and now the new ones -- and I can't tell if it does.  I tell it to look for new hardware.  Nothing.  I run the troubleshooter and it can't find anything that isn't working correctly. I tried downloading new drivers and the computer says there are no outdated drivers.

Where are the file associations kept?  I can adjust the file associations for the headphones but it doesn't seem to make any difference in what I can hear (which is only the mp3 files of my own singing, and no other sounds: not system sounds, not the CD I was listening to a while back, not Youtube, not The Sims' sounds . . .nothing), either on the headphones or through the speakers.

My old speakers were sputtering every so often, which is why I figured on changing them out anyway.  But the change from basically adequate sound to none at all (with that one exception) was sudden.  Not in the middle of listening to a file, but between listening to one file and trying to listen to the next one.

Any ideas?

I am almost resigned to taking it in to SC ELectronics.