Motherboard sound fault..

Hi folks, I hope someone has some idea's here because this one has got me stumped! If not it might be at least interesting to someone!

I recently bought an A7N8X deluxe mobo off ebay. I prayed there would be nothing wrong and so you can imagine my relief when the thing initially attempted to boot up for the first time Anyway, I wanted to here bitch'n Betty (just to satisfy my curiosity more than anything!) so I removed the SB live and activated on board sound, I was rather disappointed when I got nothing out of the main speakers..
I tested the rear speaker output and this was ok, the SPDIF was also working and yes I had analogue selected (otherwise no rear channel anyway) I also checked and re-installed the drivers and still nothing. No betty on startup and no software noise either. I had noticed the bios had previously been flashed for a -E deluxe and mine was the non -E version so I rectified that and still nothing...

It was at this point that I physically looked at the board. I immediately spotted two tracks which led toward the audio jack area that had the words LO_L & LO_R printed on them... So naturally I booted windows, played some tunes and used my screwdriver as a sort of 'probe'. This was connected to my speakers via a little capacitor (stop DC).
Anyway, I think the following picture speaks for itself really!



Now I have soldered an external jack socket to this point and I now have perfectly working sound with Betty too ( ) but I like to think I have missed something daft!
It would be interesting if I could find out why the audio disappears at this point and then re-emerges - it's not like there are any tracks to cross, and all effects processing work ok too!

Oh I thought there might be some components missing (from manufacture) but a google image search proved this is fine so I am confused!

So are there any Hard-core hardware guru's that might be able to help?

 

You set a stellar standard - compliments are in order. First question I would ask is that stencil on the board that says fpaudio - can we assume there are pinouts for front panel audio and can we assume they are jumpered so your rear panel jacks work? If all the jumpers are gone, my guess is - therein lies your problem. I couldn't see through your AGP card but that would be my first pursuit.

 

You know I didn't see that LOL! Wood for trees and all that... actually to be fair to me I have just looked directly at the mobo and it is barely visible

Great suggestion I might be getting somewhere then!

 

Hi Pete, while I have a front audio panel connector mentioned in page 33 of my manual, there is no mention of any jumpers that I can find anywhere... do the jumpers fit onto the header and replaced by the front panel connector or is there a seperate jumper block?

Thanks

Olly.

 

Think I just found it and you are both correct!!! I just googled again, looked more closely and found the offending header complete with jumpers



Oh well, it was a bit of fun LOL!

 

Hi Pete, sorry my bday today so I am playing with new toys Those PicoZ helicopters are actually quite good

Anyway I haven't bothered to check although it seems pretty obvious now doesn't it... I would suggest the breakaway I found leads back to that connector, and then continues onto the audio jack. I will try to dig up some jumpers later and see...

I am surprised my manual makes no mention of these jumpers, but tbh I think this manual is very thin on the ground for information in general, especially compared to my KT7A equivalent which I remember being packed with helpful info!

As for bitch'n Betty, not my idea but I can see where the name came from LOL!

Thanks for everyones help!

 

I too am curious as to a resolution but can certainly understand the need to play with new toys, especially on one's birthday. I built a couple of those A7N8X boards and was favorably impressed but what caught my attention was your KT7a comment - an antique by today's standards but one of my all time favorite boards (once mastery of the IRQ's was acheived).

 

Hi, just tried it and sure enough I now have audio out of the correct jack socket All that hard work for nothing

Hi Rockster2, yes I loved my KT7A but tbh don't think I really utilised to it's full potential, however I have been running my XP2100+ on it for about 2 years now (maybe longer?) and whilst the memory was only clocking 100Mhz the processor was overclocked to 2Ghz (only option I had) and it ran pretty solid! I didn't have any IRQ issues that I remember but I did have an RX55(?) patch and some other 3rd party patch under win98 too.
The only reason I moved to this board was because after a graphics upgrade (7300GT) I could no longer play 3d apps without the system rebooting. Tried every setting too and no luck
I need to get this processor back upto 2Ghz now