I need help with headphones. I've been using these headphones for about three or four months now, and they've been great. Today I plug them into the iPod, and there's no sound coming from the right earbud. They were working just fine yesterday, and the wires look fine (no cracks or splits in the cords or anything). Does anyone have any ideas, or should I just accept that my headphones have died?

I've had that happen twice to similar pairs of earbuds. (And many times to headphones back in the walkperson days.) I'm pretty sure the copper wires (inside the insulation) have broken due to metal fatigue. This usually happens at or near the stereo plug thingie.

One of my bosses used to work for the phone company. He says the typical phone cord is designed so it can be bent and straightened about 100 times before the wires inside break from fatigue.

I bought a new stereo adapter plug from Radio Shack - I intended to cut off the old connector, shorten the wire and re-solder the wires to the new connector. Haven't gotten around to trying that yet. I really should - the pairs of earbuds that failed cost $150 each.

Anyway, it could be that the earbud itself has failed, but I think the wire breaking is much more likely. You can tell the wire's broken if you wiggle the wire around and the sound cuts in and out on the bad earbud.

Anyway, it could be that the earbud itself has failed, but I think the wire breaking is much more likely. You can tell the wire's broken if you wiggle the wire around and the sound cuts in and out on the bad earbud.

I tried that, and there's no sound whatsoever. Looking at the more recent reviews on the Amazon page, it looks like this is a common problem with these earbuds. (grrr!) I've contacted v-moda about the problem, but I'm not holding a lot of hope that they'll offer me a replacement. I don't have a proof of purchase for the earbuds because they were a present, and I know that the person who gave them to me didn't keep any reciepts.

sumi, what web browser do you use? If you've got Firefox kicking about, give that a shot with gmail

Well, I don't, But thanks.

sumi, I've been having trouble with gmail hanging all day today, but I've also had the same problem with other sites. So, I don't know if my problem is your problem, and if it is my only solution is to wait and see if it gets better. And that's not so helpful, now that I've typed it up.

Could someone take a guess as to why I suddenly have no sound on my computer, from any app?

Check to make sure that to connections to the speakers haven't come undone, and that they're getting power. If no joy, then try restarting the machine by completely turning it off (at least thirty seconds or so). A simple warm restart probably won't do it.

From DXM, sometimes the sound drivers in windows fail to load on startup. If you restart and let it cool down for 10-30 minutes, it should come back on.

That sounds good. By which I mean, simple. I shall do that. Thank you.