Audio problem in W7 (no sound)

When you look at any circuit board such as the main board itself noting the underside you will see the numerous solder points where leads for the various components are soldered to the traceways. They appear as small pinpoints of solder.

A cold solder point is where the sodering job failed or where the solder broke and the tip of the lead will move slightly upward through the small hole in the board itself. As the broken solder lightly touches the surface the electrical current we call the signal will arc. On a high voltage system you would see sparks when that happens.

Ever jump start an auto? When touching the grips to the terminal poles on the battery sparks may fly. On a low voltage audio circuit strange poping, humming, buzzing sounds would be the thing you would hear there.

Likewise when looking at where the contact leads go through the preformed hole on a main board from the rear jacks those will be small solder points too. When you mentioned pressing down and suddenly hearing sound the movement of a possibly broken solder point made contact likely as soon as you lifted your fingers away the audio lead sprung back enough.

The odd sounds and low volume may have causeanother as well if the audio chip on the board has failed. Since the problem is effecting both XP and 7 you now have to consider it a hardware fault of some type. Due to the arcing if something was bumping against a ground source the audio chip may have been damaged from that or have simply been slightly defective to start with now revealing itself.

One reason for suggesting a separate sound card would be to see the onboard disabled and then find out if the audio is heard normally through the tv or speaker set in use. Since you patched directly to the tv you should then hear the normal output.

For examination of the leads on the board on the other hand that would require removing the board and a very close examination of the area where the contact points are grouped since it would take that to see only the slightest lift up of the short leads soldered there.

As you can see it does get quite involved in order to trace each possible cause. You could end up taking the board out entirely to perform a close examination only to learn it was the audio chip or problem with the audio jack itself needing replacement.

If you were formally trained in electronics I could advise scoping the board or performing a continuity test on each lead for tracing purposes. But you would need to remove the board entirely for continuity testing each solder point if the case blocks access to the underside of the board itself using a multimeter. A 1/8" miniplug would be plugged into each jack with a short length of wire with the ends exposed for keeping one tip from the meter held against each as you go along while touching the other lead lightly on each solder point until hearing a long beep sound from the meter.

You would however might need the schematic for the board to know which wire went to which solder point on the board since those are all covered over with the silver colored enclosures typically seen.

To keep this from becoming a separate course in length I would simply advise at this point going with a separate sound card assuming the problem is on the board. The X vanishing does show that 7 as well as XP was detecting the audio and loading the drivers as it should but the problem with something hardware related is preventing the normal audio you expect.

If you unplug the audio cord going to the tv and plug in a speaker set which suddenly works well then you would know the problem was external. Your description however tends to suggest a board or contact in the audio jack type of problem.

If a separate speaker set on the other hand hears normal sound when using the onboard then the output signal would be found incompatible with the input on the tv there. This would be the quick test to see if the problem is localized to the board that can be looked at before simply electing to go for a separate card.

No the cold solder point would have likely been a weakness revealed in the original soldering itself. Often one will lift up slighty when not adhering to the surface being a broken contact with no connectivity while others will be where you only see limited current/signal going through.

One question on the audio cable for your camera would be is that stereo two channel or did you feed a monaural cable into a two channel stereo cord by chance? Two channels into a monaural cable and then back into two channels can be a problem especially if the wiring is different where a lead ended up going to ground somehow due to being mismatched. That would also cause odd sounds.

Besides odd sounds for sure if a lead went to ground by using the incorrect cable combo that would also effect things on the pc side as well.

When working with connections the mistake you made for the pc going haywire was having it powered up at the time. That's easy to explain where you saw the results immediately. The red X the next day is simply due to the external connection to the tv no longer being present once you have everything unplugged.

One important thing to note here however is that the only things you can plug or unplug on pcs while powered up as a rule is on the usb bus since everything else is rather sensitive. This is one reason for the safety remove devices icon in the system tray where Windows is told to eject or disconnect itself from any drive or device being unplugged.

When going to work with any live connections for video or sound on a system always work with it off and another good idea is to the turn the breaker switch off as well or unplug the ac cord if one isn't present to avoid an accidental power up when going to plug or unplug things. That will prevent any possible damages to anything onboard or a separate card installed or even a monitor.

As for sound cards shopping now for a decent model card is rather easy during the summer clearances and now starting to see the back to school specials advertised by different vendors. The make and model card can determine if that will be better then what you have for onboard there. Even with a card that has 7.1 as just all do you simply use the first green or blue audio jack or one designated front pair on them. The other one or more jacks cover the rear channels and center mix speakers.

Now that i have seen the way those cables look I can see one possible problem you may have run right into there! The standard 1/8" miniplug or 3.5mm to RCA phono works coming from the output jack on the board there. The second cable if identical with the yellow video plug becomes a problem since the small mini plug is 3 channel plugging into a two channel cable.

This could very well explain some of the odd sounds and eventually even caused damage to the audio chip where now you only slightly hear anything. If the camcorder cable provided a separate plug for video keeping that isolated from the two audio channels you wouldn't have a problem there.

Unfortunately your initial description would have been better showing these earlier since I have to suspect that you may have damaged the audio chip using this combination if the tip of the camcorder's cable is a 3 channel. That may meshed two channels together in the process since the jacks on the board and on a separate card installed are two channel.

The now limited volume does seem to suggest that's what happened and when pressing on the inside it was more likely the electrical field effect rather then a bad solder point. Since the two cables are not intended to be used together one of the two outputs was likely lead partially to ground even by proximatety causing the chip itself to heat up on the board leading to that giving out on you!

Before getting buying a new card start off by losing that camcorder cable if my suspicions are correct and buy another even from Radio Shack intended for audio only. That would only see the two white and red RCA phono plugs at the tv end converting over to the 1/8" or 3.5mm plug to meet up with the first cable.

That would provide the extra length needed when extending the cord as well as insure the correct type of cable was plugged into the first to avoid harm to the new card it appears you will now need. Unfortunately it looks too much this is what happened to you there.

What I was advising was simply packing the cable for the camcorder away and going for something else like a 6FT 3.5mm Mini Plug to RCA Hook Computer To Stereo 6 FT Only $.82 which is actually a good price compared to any retail store's price at $5 or more!

That might even be long enough there to elimiate the need for the second extension cable you are using as well. This is the correct type for patching audio over from a pc to tv seen there. Less breaks between provides less chance of IF or other outside static noises being picked up.

When initially plugging the two cables in you would hear sound normally since the onboard was working up until that point. By your description of what happened afterwards it would suggest something caused the audio chip itself to go on you.

If you haven't tried plugging a speaker set directly into the rear audio jacks on the board without the two cables present that would be the first step to find out the good or what now appears to be "bad news". The efforts you have made to patch the audio into the tv suggest you may not have a set onhand to start with in order to try that out. Process of elimination would be the idea.

Typically a fast plug in and hearing normal wouldn't cook a chip right off unless there was a direct short to ground of some type. If the chip was already a bit after the 2yrs. of use it likely wouldn't have taken much of a load to cause it to fail which would have been from multiple causes in that case.

There's no way to be 100% sure on anything not having the system present here to look over and test. This is where you have to play the role of the "seeing eye dog" in that sense.

As for the yellow RCA plug I already assumed that you had left that unplugged. But it's still intended for use with the camcorder not a patch from a pc to tv by way of the two front speaker or even a center mix single channel jack on the board. The attached photo is the two channel to two channel type best for this while the one for the camera is a 3 channel for patching 3 outputs.

If you did have any problems when previously using the cable with the camcorder I don't see why you would now. The output from the onboard wouldn't be enough to hurt the cable. On the other hand a problem cable or problem with using the wrong type would be far more likely to hurt the onboard chip.

Have you tried plugging in any speaker set by itself to see if you hear a normal output from the board? If you don't have a set you could ask to borrow one from a friend for a quick test. That would reveal if the normal output is still seen or the onboard is now simply toast.

This will either confirm or rule out any problem with the onboard itself if normal sound is then heard. Remember the idea is to find where the problem actually is although it is pointing towards the onboard let's not totally rule out the camcorder cable as a problem source yet.

If and when you can confirm that the onboard sound is gone then you would need to shop for a suitable expansion card. Depending how much you would or can plan to spend the best move on the board would be shipping to the manufacturer unless this is on a prebuild not a custom case for an authorized repair at the shop's rate for service and repair charges.

The best two items that will save on costs however would be a cable like the one seen at Amazon and planning on a new card which you could still use later when eventually upgrading into either new case or updating the present. Then you would be working with a new board keeping the onboard as a backup sound source.

First you need to confirm the onboard is lost however while a better cable obviously is a low cost option if the audio should be found good by plugging in a speaker set or even head set.

I tried already my headphones before, it didn't work.. and my speakers were always plugged in so ofcourse I tried to hear with them.

How the camcorder cord can be the problem if its not connected? my PC is no longer connected to my TV.

I dont think I will send my board to the manufacture, wouldn't it be better to buy a new sound card?

So... I didn't really see you answered my question. Could I damage something else exept the sound card?

I bought a small USB external sound card from eBay for a 1$ for now.. I hope it will work.

Thank you.