Realtek soundcar

I've built a new pc from scratch, everythings working fine, except the soundcard.

Its a realtek AC97, and all the drivers etc are installed, theres no yellow explanation marks or red crosses in my device manager. I can't get any sound from my speakers, ive tried head phones as well.

I'm running windows XP profesional if you need to know.

Thanks
Chris

 

Is this really a card or are you referring to onboard Realtek audio?

Is the device correctly listed in the device manager under Sound Devices?

 

Hi,

Yes, check that it is enabled, although since it appears in Device Manager I would suspect that it is.

When Windows is installed it will try to install the drivers that "thinks" are the correct ones from using Plug and Play detection of the hardware. The drivers may be the wrong ones or incorrectly installed.

Run the audio drivers installation from the drivers CD that came with the motherboard (install the chipset drivers first, if you have not done so yet). If you have already installed the drivers from the CD, you may need to check for updated drivers at the motherboard's website.

If you have no luck you will need to reset the drivers. Boot into Safe Mode, go to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and remove any listings for Audio/Sound. Go to Device Manager and uninstall all the listings under the heading Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

Reboot into normal mode. When the Add New Hardware wizard runs at startup, click Cancel. When you get to the desktop, run the drivers installation program from the CD. It will ask you to reboot at the finish, if the Add New Hardware wizard runs again when you reboot, direct it to the drivers CD.

Matt

 

I shall give that a try Matt.

Its deffinantly enabled in the bios, ive installed from the disk numerous times, also downloaded the latest drivers from the web to ensure that its the latest ones.

Chiles, The soundcard is an onboard one.

Chris

 

I know this may sound strange, but it happened to my brother for no apparent reason. Go to control panel and click on sounds and audio devices. Make sure mute is not checked. Somehow this got checked on my brothers machine and drove him crazy for days.

 

I've decided id take the easy way out and buy a new soundcard. Although theres conflictions between the two now but i shall be able to sort that out.

Thanks for your help all.

 

On the last computer I built for myself, I found a resource conflict between the ATI graphics card and the onboard network adapter. I disabled the network adapter and added a PCI card. It went well like that. I have rebuilt it since and when I used an nVidia card, there was a conflict between the graphics and the onboard audio, same again, I disabled the audio and added a PCI card, it is working well like that (the onboard network adapter is working again).

Matt

 

Chris, when you get your sound card uninstall your sound drivers and then simply disable onboard sound in your bios.

There are now some amazing bargains in the sound card arena. I just picked up an X-Fi XtremeGamer (not the Fatal1ty nor the onboard RAM versions) for $69. Just make sure your rig meets the minimum specs for the card before you buy.

@Mattman, were those conflicts you listed on "modern" hardware? I haven't heard of stuff like that in years. I have heard of people still resolving problems by moving their sound card to different slots - even in today's hardware. But I thought XP was supposed to take care of all that.

Gary

 

Hi Gary, the motherboard is less than 6 months old. I can't remember specific details. With the first (network) problem I was only using Win 98 and it would only boot to safe mode until I disabled the network adapter. Win XP was on the rebuild and I could not get the audio to work. I eventually used the experience of the first build to disable the audio and add the PCI card. I still had the onboard network disabled from the first build, reenabled it and it installed without a hitch.

Yes, just like the olden days At the moment it is working fine, no sign of any other problems, but I will watch for a BIOS upgrade that may address the problem, especially if I look at changing/upgrading the graphics.

Matt