New Motherboard, No Sound

[truthinnumberz]

Hello guys,

I'm a musician and I just wrote 5 of my best songs and as soon as I finished the last one, I got a blue screen of death and my computer wouldn't even boot. That was with my last motherboard, which was a Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3. I had a lot of problems with that board, it would constantly blue screen about twice a day and I'd have to take out the memory from one slot and put it in another. The motherboard had problems with the memory socket, so when it wouldn't boot, I bought a whole nother motherboard.
I installed my new motherboard, which is an ASUS M5A88-M. I had it profesionally installed, and it now boots up fine and I have access to all my old files. When it booted up though, the only thing that didn't work was the sound. I put in the disc that came with the motherboard and installed the drivers. That didn't work, so I checked the BIOS settings to make sure sound was enabled. It was. I then updated the graphics card, which is an ATI Radeon HD 5800. That didn't work, so I went into my Device Manager and saw what the onboard sound was. The two options were AMD High Definition Audio Device and Realtek. I went to the Realtek site and downloaded the drivers and installed them and still no sound. I then uninstalled every sound driver I saw and it then automatically found them and reinstalled them. I tried inserting my Windows 7 CD and repairing, but it would not let me. There are no exclamation points in the sound driver, it says everything is working.
So I've uninstalled the drivers, reinstalled them... checked for updates to the BIOS and motherboard... I've tried plugging in speakers and headphones into the back green port and the front panel as well with no results. I know they work fine. I've been reading forums and troubleshooting for a week and I'm about to take a sledgehammer to this thing. I need my songs that I just made!!! Can anyone help? Thanks

 

[M1GU31]

do you have in device manger in the audio section one of them called high defition audio device? Update that one if it's there by right clicking it and then selecting update driver software. I had a similar problem with my asus mobo but i had to update that one to get it working on mine.

 

[truthinnumberz]

Hi M1GU31, thanks for responding. Yeah, that's actually one of the first things I tried. It said the best driver for my device was already installed. I tried that option with both options listed there after searching automatically.

 

[mrdemon]

Hi,

Have you Tried Going to "Sounds" (Type it in the start bar System sounds) Then Right Clicking on the Realtek and set a default device.

Regs

 

[seekermeister]

Since you had the board professionally installed, I would take it back to the person who did so, because ironing out problems such as this are part and parcel of installing a motherboard. It shouldn't cost you anything, except time and aggravation.

 

[truthinnumberz]

Hi, mrdemon, yes I typed in "System sounds" and now have made sure that the Realtek is the enabled device as you can see in the screen shot. Also in the screen shot you can see I have an MP3 playing, and the volume levels indicate that sound is playing. And yeah, seekermeister, if any of these tips do not solve my sound problem, I will definitely take it back to where I had the mobo installed... it's just that it's far away and very time consuming. I'd also be very curious to see if he can even fix it because I've tried absolutely everything.


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[seekermeister]

That is one reason why I never use professionals anymore, because when doing a repair such as this, they should take it on themselves to check that a problem like this doesn't exist, before they return the item to the customer and accept payment...however in my experience, they never do.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I'm taking a flyer asking if you've been completely through the bios settings. Could there be a setting to turn on "on board sound device as default". Please have a look and see if you need to enable a feature.

 

[mrdemon]

truthinnumberz

Looking at your Pic tells me that the sound card is indeed working, On another note have you tried the following.

1, Unplug the Speaker from the BACK and Plug into the Front Panel if you have one.
2, Try the Pink or Black Socket.
3, In the BIOS is there anywhere that is saying HD Only. Maybe Turning this off may help as most speakers dont support this.
4, Is your front panel faulty. This may be causing the Rear speakers not to be activated.

Try these steps please.

 

[seekermeister]

What is your speaker setup...analog, digital, HDMI?

 

[truthinnumberz]

Hey guys, thanks for your responses... I just messed around in the BIOS settings and in the Advanced, Chipset options I did see AMD HDMI Audio was enabled. I disabled and restarted it, but then it just plain said no sound was installed. I re-enabled it and saw under "Onboard Devices Configuration" that the HD Audio Controller was enabled. I disabled that and it didn't work so I re-enabled it. Front Panel Select had two options: HDMI and AC97. It was set to HDMI, so I tried AC97 and that didn't work so now it's back.

As for my speaker setup, I have two different speakers. One is a subwoofer attached to 5 different speakers and one is a really cheap and simple pair of speakers that simply plugs in to the computer. Both those speakers are known to work and I hear nothing out of them. My headphones are a nice pair... they used to work with the last setup.

 

[seekermeister]

It comes down to the fact that either the Realtek sound doesn't work, or it is disabled. If it were correct, obviously it would appear in the Device Manager. I may have overlooked it, but I read where you found the HD sound, and disabled/enabled it, but it wasn't clear that you enabled the regular realtek onboard sound. If you are positive that it is enabled, and it doesn't appear in the Device Manager, even after installing the driver, then I would say that you have another lemon motherboard.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Have you been to the Asus web site and searched for recent updated audio drivers?

I'd trust Asus drivers before Realtek's drivers.

 

[mrdemon]

Hello,

Me again. Would you be ok Loggin into MSN mine is [email protected]

 

[truthinnumberz]

Thanks again everyone for putting your heads together on this one. My songs must be great because I've had many obstacles thrown in my way to prevent me from finishing them. I've done all I can do and I'm going to take it to get professionally fixed... I just have no idea and it's really frustrating. If he can solve it, I will post what it ended up being.

 

[Sardonicus]

There's one last thing you can check before you call it a day.
Check the Levels tab and make sure that "Front" is not at zero.

 

[Invader440]

Got a codec package installed?

 

[truthinnumberz]

Eureka!

OK so here is the answer to the riddle. First, my computer wouldn't start and I spent 2 weeks troubleshooting it with the old and new motherboard until I got so frustrated I took it in to be professionally repaired. They repaired it and it booted but then it had no sound at all. I troubleshot THAT for a couple weeks, tried everything until I got so frustrated that I took it again and paid again to be repaired. My new songs must be the best in the world because something doesn't want them being released to the world.

My PC repair tech tried the motherboard in his Ubuntu system as well as a whole bunch of other diagnostics and it turns out that I just have horrible luck and bought another lemon motherboard. The first motherboard was Gigabyte and it had problems from the start with the memory so I bought an ASUS which turns out to have bad sound on the motherboard. I purchased a soundcard for 30 bucks and now I have working sound again. I don't know what the odds are for 2 back to back horrible motherboards but anyway thanks for your help and I can now finish my songs.

 

[seekermeister]

Glad you got a workaround to work. Your luck doesn't surprise me, because I've had far worse than that. I've found that the odds of a lemon motherboard are much higher than for any other component. That is why I now stick with only brands that I know something about, and even that doesn't necessarily eliminate the problems.