Realtek HD Audio not recognizing speakers.

Hi folks. I'm at my wits end on a problem here. The sound on my computer is not working because the Realtek driver (or the motherboard, not sure which) is not recognizing my speakers that are plugged in. I get this:



I have tried to re-install any and all drivers that may be affected with no success. Tried restarting, messing with the BIOS, to no avail. What should I do now? This is seriously holding up my work (I'm a music composer).

I see the HDMI output is set as Default playback device. Do you have an HDMI cable connected? If you do, disconnect that and then see if you can get your speakers back working.

Same issue as what I have posted. If I had to guess he has an Asus MB.

I have an HDMI for my second monitor on my graphics card. Taking that out has no change. That HDMI connection is for the port directly on the board anyway.

It's a Dell Motherboard actually. Part of a Studio 540.

With a Dell, you need Dell supplied sound drivers. If you are not using Dell supplied sound drivers, that is the first step - install Dell drivers. I used to do a lot of support on the Dell users forums and non-Dell sound drivers usually do not work or work correctly.

HDMI generally takes priority over the sound card's output and usually the HDMI will set itself as the default audio playback device.

Dell does not support Win 7 on this model, but they do support Vista. Usually, Vista drivers work OK with Windows 7.

Here is the Dell Vista 32/64 bit sound driver: Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

Did that. It reset all the playback devices to what they were on the first picture I showed, so no change. It's no longer called a the Realtek HD Audio device though.



There is no HDMI cable plugged in. But the 3.5 jack is, firmly. Plugging it in on the headphones front panel makes no difference.

What is listed in the Device Manager for audio? Also what does the Device Manager Properties for the Audio device list as the Driver provider?

Here it is.



Usually one of them is Realtek.

As I suspected, the Dell driver was not installed. The generic Windows installed HD Audio Codec is what is currently installed.

I tried it again by removing the sound devices first in the Device Manager and then installing the Realtek driver from the Dell website. Still no change in the problem but the software is fixed now.



So.... right back to square one here.

Is it likely to be a hardware failure?

The High Definition Audio Device should not be there and could be causing the problem. Disable that in the Device Manager then restart the PC and see if anything changes.

I did that and the other HDMI device disappeared. (which I believe is the graphics card?)

The graphics card should have drivers from the card vendor, not use the generic Windows drivers. If you have a ATI Radeon card, get the drivers from AMD. If its an NVIDIA card get them from NVIDIA.

The Realtek "HDMI" is still a problem. I suspect there is more problems than just the sound problem.

What other problems would there be? I haven't noticed any other problems.

The Realtek HDMI out is obviously the onboard sound going through the motherboard's HDMI out port. I don't think this is transferred through the Graphics card but I could be wrong.

That could be since this has a motherboard HDMI output. Are you actually using that connection? Generally, if there is a cable plugged into the HDMI it automatically becomes the Default audio playback device. However, usually you can manually switch the audio to the "speakers".

Although it should work OK with Windows 7, since Dell does not officially support Win 7 on this, there could be some driver issues. There could also be a Windows issue that is causing your problem and not the actual hardware.

Whether a separate sound card would fix the problem ??? If you install a separate sound card, you will have to disable the Integrated (RealTek) audio in the BIOS (F2 - Setup) and that will apparently also disable your HDMI audio (if you are using this). If the RealTek was not disabled in the BIOS it could (and many times does) conflict with the other audio device and neither works.

If it worked OK at one time, I see two possibilites to fix it and both are not pretty. #1 is to buy a sound card (although you could buy an inexpensive one and have as good a quality audio as the integrated and if it didn't work you wouldn't be out much). #2 is a complete, clean reinstall (but no guarantee that this will fix it if the RealTek audio has a hardware problem).

No I don't use the MB HDMI. I use the one on the Graphics card for my second monitor but not for sound.

It seems odd that it would be a Windows issue since I've had Windows 7 on here since the day it came out and it's worked swimmingly. I'm leaning toward solution #1 right now. The onboard sound has always been just adequate, but never stellar, so it may be time for an upgrade. I have no real interest in doing a reinstall if I can't guarantee that would fix the issue. I've had hardware issues with this computer before; Dell's semi-cheap parts tend to fail quicker than they should.

Any good soundcards for good prices these days?

You can use a PCI or a PCIexpress sound card.

Depends on what price range you are in. A nice PCI sound card is the HT Omega "Striker 7.1" that is available from www.newegg.com and probably others. HT Omega also makes PCIex cards. Then there are the SoundBlaster Xfi cards and there is ASUS Xonar sound card that seems to be popular.

I think you are OK with the front panel headphone/mic connection. It looks like a standard connector in the Studio 540 that you have.

Really I want to spend as little as possible without getting something crappy. I'm a musician so sound quality is important, but I don't really do sound production with this computer. I also only use 2.1 speakers so I don't need to overkill on surround sound. I'll do some research and find a good one.

Thanks for your help fireberd!

I'm also a musician and have a recording studio using Sonar X1 software.

In my old DAW PC, I used a Striker 7.1 sound card as it worked great and didn't interfere with my studio recording interface equipment. I had a SoundBlaster and it did interfere (the Striker 7.1 replaced the SoundBlaster).

I don't know what is available in the "under $50" range for sound cards that are fully Windows 7 compatible.