dvd drive...great video but no sound..help please

i have a dell inspiron 8600 laptop which had a dvd rom drive in it. i recently received a new nec dvd-r/rw drive so i could use it to burn cds and dvds. prior to receiving it i had never actually used the original dvd rom drive to play a dvd movie.
For some reason both of these dvd drives play the video portion of movies ,but no sound. The sound on my laptop is working fine in all other respects and i can play music cds on both of the dvd drives...just no sound when i play a movie.
these drives are plug and play and the sys info says the drivers are up to date. I saw something about a decoder being required,but since i had the dvd drive in the original configuration when i bought the laptop i assume i have the decoder i need to play movies and get sound.Im probably overlooking something simple,but would appreciate any help someone can give me on this. Thanks very much.

 

Usually the decoder is usually incuded with the DVD playing software which I assume you have? What software are you using to play DVDs?

 

thanks for replying. i have tried to use real player. i have also had a problem successfully downloading windows media player v10 which is supposed to be compatible with win xp..my os..and have tried everything i know to get it to run but get a message saying win mp is incompatible with xp which i know is not true. i can download it and install it but it wont actually run , thus my using real player which works fine except for the sound. i use musicmatch for music and my sound works on my laptop generally in all other respects. i did recently install nero software to burn cds. Sorry if im rambling,but i have to believe this is something simple and im too stupid to recognize it.

 

Open your volumn control (double click) see if the cd volumn control is all the way down.

 

thanks for suggestion. volume is up on all areas of volume control. my sound works fine playing music, cds etc. just not for dvd movies..i have never used a dvd rom before so i assume it is something stupid i am overlooking...as usual!

 

i just tried to play a dvd movie using my nero software..same result..no volume...i had a message come up which said that i need to add a dvd video plug in for 24.99 or upgrade to a newer version of nero. i dont mind doing that if it fixes my problem,but how do you think that relates to my real player not giving me dvd sound either? thanks again.

 

You said received a new nec dvd-r/rw drive from where? Dell? If Dell ask them. You should have a DVD viewing program come with your Dell. Uninstall the DVD viewing program and reinstall see it work.

 

no. i bought the dvd rw drive on ebay.it is brand new..from a computer retailer. it didnt come with any software and i used it to replace my dell dvd drive so i know my laptop has the necessary software and drivers to make this work. i checked that out through the device manager which said the new drive is working properly and has latest driver installed.
i am going to send email to the seller to see what they suggest,but i know the drive itself is good.thanks for your help.

 

If Real Player also no volumn then you might got a bad drive. Return it

 

Are you sure that drive compatiable with your model (Dell)

 

no volume from real player or nero,but i reinstalled my original dell dvd rom and get no volume from it either.that's why i dont think the new drive is bad. i get same result...no volume ...with both drives,but only when i try to play a dvd movie on them. everything else works fine.

 

i emailed the retailer i bought the dvd rw drive from. they said the problem must be with my decoder software...to reinstall either Pow DVD or Win Dvd.I checked my system via win ex and found Pow DVD 5.1 in add remove programs,but i cant find it in my hard drive using the search feature.Do you know how i can access it to reinstall it? Im afraid if i uninstall/remove it via the add remove process i wont be able to get it back. Should the Pow DVD software be somewhere in the several discs i received from dell with the laptop when i bought it.The only one i havent yet checked is the win xp reinstall cd. Thanks for any addl advice you can provide.