My sister gave me her Lap top to play around with to see if I can get the sound working again. She is attending UNIVERSITY and requires the audio in order to listen into lectures on-line. The problem is if it's a sound card, driver, etc that is needed. How would I know?

Can anyone help?Start by checking the manual to see how the volume is physically controlled on the LAPTOP & make sure it's not set at minimum. Next, in Windows, check if there is a volume control ICON in the systray, bottom right, - click on this & ensure that nothing's muted. If there's no volume control icon, or if it's set correctly, open Control Panel/Device Manager and see if 1) you have any sound controllers installed & 2) if there is an asterisk against them.  If there is no (1), then you have a HARDWARE problem - either the soundcard is faulty or it needs re-enabling in the BIOS. If (2) is the case, you need to double click on the asterisk to check what the fault is - either hardware or lack of drivers.
Check these first & post back if further help neededtype dxdiag in the run box....this may give you more info on what is going on..