That sounds like a hardware failure. IRQ failures are much more rare these days (if you are running WinXP/98/2k), but you can check them. If you are running XP wait until the failure occurs, then go to your control panel, and select System. Select the hardware tab, then Device Manager. Find your device (prolly under Sound), and open it up - Windows has a status that will have a small chance of giving you some additional info.
TGregg I am running win 2000 pro. How would I check for an IRQ failure? When you say hardware failure do you mean something with the sound card? This morning I opened up my computer and discovered that I do not have a separate sound card. It appears that it is built in to the motherboard. Does it sound like my best option at this point is to buy a new sound card? If I buy a new sound card can I just install it into an empty PCI slot and not expect any conflicts with the built-in sound.
Been a while since I ran W2k, look for something called the Device Manager. I think (but am not sure) W2K will tell you if you have an IRQ conflict. But that's very unlikely. You can run a sound card on most (if not all) mainboards that have an embedded sound card. You should (and may have to) disable that onboard sound though. Usually this is done either through the BIOS setup program, or a jumper on the mainboard. You'll want to read the docs for your mainboard. Unless you are a fanatic or do serious audio editing on your PC, an El Cheapo (tm) sound card will work fine for you. Expect to pay about $15 bucks for one. After you have disabled your on-board sound, plug the new sound card into your mainboard and fire it up. Windows will either ask you for the drivers, or more likely just ask for the W2K install CD. EDIT: Forgot to say that yeah, a hardware failure would be a problem on your mainboard. Or speakers. Or speaker wires, etc. Might be worth a moment to check with headphones and see if it works that way.
Speakers seem to be working fine. The weird thing about this problem is that I can play a CD and hear sound at anytime. It just seems to be a problem with alert type sounds such as e-mail notification, order fills, etc.
My settings/configurations seem to be correct because I do hear the alerts and notifications when the computer is first turned on and after a re-boot. The loss of sound on the notifications and alerts seems to occur at some point after the computer has been on and running for awhile. As an example if I go into the control panel and select the sounds option and then try to sample the diffenent sound events, I hear sound. Sometime after the computer has been on I can go back to sample the different sound events and I will get no sound. Yet I can pop in a CD and it will play music.
That seems pretty funky, but here's the explanation for it. Your CD drive has a cable that goes straight into your sound "card" embedded on your mainboard, so it bypassess a lot of stuff. Here's what to do. Take your box over to your buddy's house, and switch soundcards with him. See if his works in your box, and yours in his. If both work, you know that the Evil Computer God (who's name cannot be written) hates you and you should avoid all technology for the rest of your life. I gotta go with hardware. Buy a cheapo sound card and solve all your problems.
Thanks for your help and everyone else who responded. I will go buy a new sound card tomorrow and hopefully that will do the trick.
Installed the new sound card yesterday. Have had no more sound problems yesterday or today. Thanks again for everyone's help.