no sound, no red light on audio port but can hear start up chime

[nikeann19]

i have macbook pro late 2008, i can hear a start up chime but doest have sound right after. It doesnt have a sound even on an external speaker. Ive searched a lot of forums and it didnt work on my machine. It doesnt have red light on the audio port and the sound preferences says "no audio device found" but I assume it was a software problem since i can hear the chime from an internal speaker. Hope that somebody out there can help me. Its hard using a macbook pro with no sound. please help me....