No Sound...can't figure it out

Hi there, registered after many attempts to get my toslink working to my home theatre system.
Was going to post as a problem but it works fine now...well fine enough to work out of all speakers.

At first Vista wouldn't let the drivers play sound, after some searching I found some that sorted me out.
So I moved to Windows 7 and I had no problems with the audio drivers supplied from the windows update while in analog until I plugged in the toslink and went optical.

Installed and reinstalled a few drivers, and settled on the two on the Realtek website. AC97 and the HD one.

Neither worked and as expected the HD one didnt even show as having installed any sound drivers.
So what to do?

Well this is what I did, checked the cable, red light so no problem there, check the amp, works with the xbox 360 so nothing there then booted to XP which I still have to play a few older games.
It worked straight off....okay, so it must be Windows 7.

Back to Windows 7 and suddenly it works, not sure why but now I can use the optical cable and connect it to my Samsung amp.

In sound playback realtek digital output is default and has a tick, the volume bar flickers (it did flicker when I had no sound). speakers are down as ready and I am a happy bunny.

I could not tell you how is came about but it works now so anyone struggling it can work.
Oh I am using the Windows 7 beta, build 7077 by the way.

itdoesntmatter said:

Oh I am using the Windows 7 beta, build 7077 by the way.

Looks like you've answered your own question, that build is not exactly the latest, whilst the betadrivers are for a later build.

Seems like a surefire method for problems to me.

Cheers Petrossa, am meaning to switch to the rc but am waiting on a media centre build before I trust formatting to windows ha.

I have to say I have had absolutely no issues with 7, will definitely stay around here in case I find any faults/fixes, brilliant how much help you can get so cheers to anyone reading who does go out to offer sound helpful advice.

OK well I fixed the issue (for me at lease)

I am using the realtek drivers, and tried all 400 different versions I could get my hands on, they would install look like they are working, volume levels were metering but nothing came out, it turns out it is a driver issue that wasn't fixed with the latest drivers. The realtek drivers have the ability to remap the physical audio jacks at the back of the pc to what you want, stereo, headphones... well it looks like although the realtek software says its done just that it hasn't, so the best advise for people with the pc showing audio levels but no sound, try a different plug, in my case its the green one, BOOM! sound.... 2 days later.

Anarchist said:

in my case its the green one, BOOM! sound.... 2 days later.

I hate to sound like a wise ass, but for just stereo, it is always the green one on every computer in the world.
Blue is line input, and pink is microphone input.

In a 5.1 or more setup, the colors represent different outputs, which again are the same on any system. The color code is a standard.


Now on the problem of no sound.

This might or might not help.

I had no sound after install also. In the audio tab on the taskbar I saw it was on headphone so I changed it to speakers.

Still no sound. Then I saw, wtf? It went back to headphone again.

Then I went to the audio section in the control panel and set the speaker output as default and the problem was fixed.

This might do the trick for some of you.

For others it may be a driver issue.

Good luck

Anarchist said:

OK well I fixed the issue (for me at lease)

I am using the realtek drivers, and tried all 400 different versions I could get my hands on, they would install look like they are working, volume levels were metering but nothing came out, it turns out it is a driver issue that wasn't fixed with the latest drivers. The realtek drivers have the ability to remap the physical audio jacks at the back of the pc to what you want, stereo, headphones... well it looks like although the realtek software says its done just that it hasn't, so the best advise for people with the pc showing audio levels but no sound, try a different plug, in my case its the green one, BOOM! sound.... 2 days later.

Yeah. Well since 7 has added audiohardware virtualisation it is a bit of a hit and miss if it'll work or not. Guess ive been the lucky one because it worked from day 1.

But i can see how the driver enginers are trying to make heads and tails of with what in fact is double virtualisation. Theirs, so you can remap output plugs and MS's so you can change output whilst an app is running.

These factors are in principe already a major source for contention, let alone when everything is still pre release. Given the complexity i don't see the matter entirely resolved anytime soon.

squonksc said:

I hate to sound like a wise ass, but for just stereo, it is always the green one on every computer in the world.
Blue is line input, and pink is microphone input.

yeap fair enough, but when on other os's you can remap the port by saying its a "...." and off you go. This can cause a slight issue when troubleshooting, "the plugs are fine because it works in xp...cant be the physical jacks..." when its a bit of both, the drivers not dealing with it and you assuming that the plug you have it in, is where it should be.

As usual MS has finished an OS and the hardware manufacturers lag far behind with the drivers.

And they know for 2 years it is coming.

The only reason I can think of why they would be reluctant to make drivers for stuff they already sold, is that they want us to buy new stuff.

Instead of blaming MS, we should be knocking on the door of the manufacturers.

Shame on them.

squonksc said:

As usual MS has finished an OS and the hardware manufacturers lag far behind with the drivers.

And they know for 2 years it is coming.

The only reason I can think of why they would be reluctant to make drivers for stuff they already sold, is that they want us to buy new stuff.

Instead of blaming MS, we should be knocking on the door of the manufacturers.

Shame on them.

well usually i'd agree. In this particular case however....
I tried to write an app that would set audioendpoints systemwide.
CodeProject: Set Audio Endpoints System Wide Vista/Windows 7. Free source code and programming help
so dived deep into the matter.

Must be said, the windows 7 audio sublayer is without any doubt the most 'accident prone' complex piece of engineering i've ever seen.

There are tons of layers between the actual hardware, the driver and the OS. In fact part of the OS encapsulates the hardware even before the driver get's it.

But the endresult (if and when it works) is excellent. Switching audioendpoints back and forth on the fly is a really big thing.