Guitar stoped working

Hey, my guitar just stopped working. I checked it in the amp and in the tuner, plus the chord I'm using is only a month old and shouldn't be having problems, so I'm pretty sure it's the guitar.I've heard of certain brands of cables that seem to have a very short service life, supposedly without being abused, too. You might carefully unscrew the covers on the plugs, and see if a wire has come loose. If you have a multimeter, maybe check the cable for breaks or shorts.

Now, when I ask if you've checked all the other possible easy (and cheap) fixes, it's not to insult your intelligence or experience in any way, but just to run over some things you might not have thought of yet. Power to the amp, amp and guitar volume controls didn't get bumped to an inaudible setting, all plugs into the right jacks, and properly inserted, etc., etc. (And this is from a guy who more than once plugged his guitar cable into the footswitch jack on his Marshall MG30DFX, instead of the input jack next to it, and wondered why there was no sound. Brain cramp! :oops: )

When you say "checked it . . . in the tuner," do you mean plugged the guitar into the tuner to see if there was any activity on the meter or whatever your tuner uses? If there's no meter movement or lights blinking or whatever, it could be the guitar, or maybe the cable. Another cable could be a handy item here, unless your usual one has been tested and found okay with another guitar and amp, or with a meter.

Run through some of those tests, and then we can start on things that might involve looking inside the guitar.

Aye, the test's have been done. I have another chord, but it only works when the plug is at certain angles. I twisted it enough so that it should have worked at least once if the guitar was fine, so I'm thinking it has no signal. I have no idea what no signal means exactly, but I saw someone say it on another thread and it sounds right.

What would it take to fix this?

And if this helps, I know absolutly nothing about guitars.

Probably on the jack, or further in. I would take it in to a local shop, shouldn't cost you more then twenty or thity bucks to fix. (if that)

Probably on the jack, or further in. I would take it in to a local shop, shouldn't cost you more then twenty or thity bucks to fix. (if that) The only other thing I could think of is dirt in your pots (the volume/tone knobs) but that normaly just causes a crackle when you adjust them.

And if this helps, I know absolutly nothing about guitars.Heh; neither do I. Sometimes it's kinda like trying to understand women. :lol:
You could unscrew the output jack plate from the body and ease the jack out enough to see if a wire detached, but getting it back where it belongs (the wire or the jack assembly) could be the real "fun part." (NOT!)
Bobb has a point there: you might be just as well off to have a pro work on it, especially if it's still under a warranty. Or if you have a friend who has some successful repairs and/or modifications to his credit and would be willing to check it out for you, that might work, too. Unless you (a) are willing to open it up and look inside and (b) have a soldering iron and other tools to fix a detached wire or other "simpler" work, you might be happier in the long run if someone with more experience did it. The best scenario would be to find somebody who'll let you look over their shoulder while they work on it.

Getting inside a guitar can be a good learning experience, but it can also be an expensive lesson. If repairs and mods are something you'd like to do for yourself someday, take a look here for tools and supplies: http://www.stewmac.com . They also have some free information about the electronic stuff, as well as books like Guitar Electronics For Musicians by Donald Brosnac, or How To Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great! by Dan Erlewine.

This time around, I'd suggest "plan B-as-in-Bobb." 8)

Yeah, I guess I'll just have to take it in for repair. As for a warranty, I got the guitar 11 years ago, and I think it was used then.

I actually would like to learn a little about the inside of the guitar, but I don't have enough money to buy a new one if I screw up, and I really just want to play right now, so the less risky venture will have to do.

Thanks for the comments.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee, guitar's fixed. And it only cost 10 bucks.

WHAT A STEAL!!!

If I ever get enough money to get a new guitar, I'd like to take this one apart and see it's insides, but until then I've got to be careful with my one and only investment.

Excellent. Glad to hear you got it done so quickly and inexpensively. 8)

While you're waiting for the day when you have a backup axe (to prevent withdrawal symptoms while the Peavey is being worked on) or when you have a new (or "new to you") one that's just begging for some improvements, read over the info on the Stew-Mac site. The i-4000 series under Electronics, pickups here http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo.html will give you a good start.
For more on electronic theory as applied to guitars, this is another good start: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/howitallworks.php . The entire GuitarNutsâ„¢ site is full of good information.
Have fun. Play on!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee, guitar's fixed. And it only cost 10 bucks.

OK, you got my interest peaked now. What was wrong with it? My guess is loose wire on input jack or one of the pots.

OK, you got my interest peaked now. What was wrong with it? My guess is loose wire on input jack or one of the pots.

Yep, that was it. The input jack has been loose for years but I've never been able to titen it because the whole thing turns when I try, so eventually everything got twisted and finally disconnected.

And thanks Doug, I'll check those out. I don't really want to go head deep in electronics right now since the amount of things I need to learn in actual playing is pretty overwhelming right now. But it's always good to know the basics of anything.

Thanks for the link!!! :D

Thats common for that to happen. What I do when the jack is loose is I use a needle nose pliers and carefully insert them just enough into the jack so I don't bend the tips tang, then I hold them in the open postion so it holds the inside of the jack, which allows me to tighten the outside nut. Hope I expalined it so you understand how I do this. Basically you need to hold the inside so you can tighten the nut.

Joe