HDMI sound output works just fine, audio jacks not at all! New PC

Hello everyone, you guys seem to know your stuff so Ill ask for your help:

I have a frustrating problem with my brand new XPC Shuttle computer. Everything works fine, just not sound. I tried hooking up the computer via HDMI to a TV for the first time as I didnt have a monitor - sound works just fine. Then later I removed the casing and installed 4 more Gbs of RAM for a total of 8. In order to do this I had to remove and reinsert the videocard. Computer was never on during that procedure.

Now, I cannot for the love of God make this computer produce sound trough the (correctly) connected audio jacks while it is hooked up to a proper pc monitor - Ive tried with numerous speaker/headphone devices which all are in mint condition (confirmed with other devices).

My OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. In the sound manager down in the corner it said at first only "Realtek Digital Output". I figured this could mean that somehow, using HDMI cable (as it was the first monitor I used the system on) that the system defaulted on a HDMI output for sound. It would not show bars for anything else, and Speaker/Headphone devices were listed as "not connected" - despite clearly being so. It seemed at first like a problem with drivers - classic stuff. Please dont go there: Drivers are installed, up to date.

Then I launched Realtek HD audio manager and checked the box "Disable front panel jack detection" - as instructed by the program in case I had problems with detecting devices. Now the soundbar is moving vividly on screen as I play on some "virtual" version representation of a headset. See picture.

But the problem persists. Ive seen numerous similiar problems online, but none where HDMI output were fine. I have not been able to go trough BIOS and find solution there as I couldnt find an option that was related to sound as far as I could see.


Any help would be greatly apreciated!

Best regards, Lars

My problem seems very similiar to this gentleman's:

No Audio Output via Front and Rear Jacks

He seems to not have found a fix to his problem too. About my system: Could you guys look at the pictures attached to this post?

Thank you so much for any insight or help! :)

I checked the following:

- BIOS: on-board sound enabled
- Service.msc windows audio automatic start enabled
- Realtek HD audio manager: box "disable front jack detection" checked (recommended in case windows wont detect audio devices)
- Drivers up to date and running
- Clean install of Windows Ultimate 64 bit, did not resolve the problem

Anyone had a similiar experience, or know what could be the problem?

Hey p5bdkw,

Il try that, getting back to you in a second!

1. When i enable jack detection, the speaker symbol appears as not plugged in, when I enable it it says that the device is connected - regardless to if the speaker/headphone is connected or not.

This to begin with seem a little counter-intuitive to me, but Im going to go ahead with your recommendation anyway.

2. When front jack detection is enabled, the speakers are not detected (this situation persists if I disable front jack detection, it seems as if windows just "makes up some sort of imaginary device" when I disable front jack detection.

3. Unplugged everything, restarted, no improvement.

Thanks for your attention though, any other suggestions?

Thanks again for coming back to me, greatly appreciate the effort. Im afraid that neither the front jack nor the back works, it just wont detect the audio device. Though I left out one interesting detail that could help:

When a headphone is connected to the front jack, the right earphone will produce an annoying rather loud electric noise or interference, this does not occur with the back one. Maybe the front one is faulty and somehow some sort of electrical conductance problem is impairing Windows in registrating the audio devices when plugged in or not? Im just guessing at this point.

Thanks again for your attention!

Hey again, now I droned trough the forum and found this thread: New Graphics Card Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 has disabled my sound.

I would seem that my Graphics cards (Nvidia GTX 570) built in soundcard, which is only enabled in HDMI mode (hence my audio only works in HDMI mode) completely takes over and disables the on-board sound. This is the most reasoneable explanation I can find right now, but the strange thing is that in BIOS I have confirmed that on-board sound is enabled! :S

Could that be the problem? That HDMI audio driver of graphics card overruns the sound driver of mobo?

Update:

A person on the above forum listed the following possible options:
1. Get a dedicated soundcard to override the video card driver - impossible to me as I have a small box (Shuttle)
2. (see picture) Disable the audio channel with the same bus as the video card, in effect disabling the overriding effect of the video card. Tried that, no fix.