New vid card, no sound. BIOS enabled, drivers updated, device active..

I know, hate to be that guy bringing up a topic people have been complaining of for years. But trust me, I would not be posting this if I had not spent the last 48 hours with 80 tabs open as I simultaneously browse a dozen forums while ripping my hair out...

Anyway, I have a brand new out of box Acer Aspire AX1935-UR20P running Windows 7 HP 64 with 8GB DDR3 mem. However It only came with one monitor port and one HDMI port, but as the HDMI input on my second monitor was fried by the lightning strike a cpl days ago (same reason I bought the new computer, the old one is now a paperweight) I next installed a new video card w/ extra monitor inputs -- an ASUS HD 5450 Silent, to be specific. And yes, that killed all my sound and microphone ports on both the front and back, which had minutes before all been working perfectly.

In BIOS, onboard audio is Enabled. As far as audio drivers, I disabled the HDMI audio device that the video card installed and activated (as per every forum thread I read). After ensuring the Realtek High Definition Audio was the default driver, I went to the Realtek web site to download, uninstalled old driver, and re-install the most current 64-bit version 6.0.1.6662. Everything went successfully, but despite several reboots and re-checks of all the other settings once more, I still have no sound.

My speakers are enable and active, it just refuses to acknowledge anything in the motherboard ports since the vid card was installed. The sound panel keeps reading: Speakers, Realtek High Definition Audio, "not plugged in" and the sound icon in the corner has a red x. There are speakers attached via the back of the computer that were working before I slipped the video card in, now they're are not. I have also tried headphones and microphones cables via slots on both the front and back of the PC, still no go.

It's to the point I want to disable my video card just to get my sound back, but as anyone who has even had multiple monitors will tell you, it is impossible to go back to one. Anyway, any and all advice would be appreciated, before I am left with no hair lol. I apologize if I have left anything out but just let me know and I will get back to you ASAP. Thanks in advance, best wishes!

jzjad said:

Unless i missed this have you installed all updated drivers for your video card? And have you checked to make sure your default audio device has not switched to your video card instead, HDMI and im sure you aware of is both Video an audio and if your Graphics card as i see now has HDMI AVI and VGA ports, its possiable it may have simply switched default, they may both be enable'd.

Yes, all the updated drivers for the ASUS video card were installed and I also ensured the motherboard audio is both active and default.

Additionally, my on-call computer tech for the last 4+ yrs made a house call, confident he could fix the problem within minutes. An hour later he was scratching his head saying "I must have done something crazy" because he could not figure it out either. So he said to do a clean Windows 7 install and that should almost guaranteed fix the problem.

Well, I did that, and guess what folks, still no sound. Lol part of me wants to laugh in frustration while the other is wondering WTF? I am so confused now... Where do I go from here? What isn't that I haven't done/checked? I'm rotating thru two sets of speakers and a pair of headphones, so I know it's not a faulty output device (especially as they were working seconds before the vid card install)

Thanks again for any and all help. Oh, and I am running Win 7 Ult now instead of HP.