AC97 Audio stopped working randomly.

[Ph30nIX]

Hey guys,

Normally I can fix most issues with the PC's I maintain, but recently my brother's audio on his PC stopped working. It uses the AC97 chipset, and I have tried multiple drivers etc to fix it, but not getting anywhere.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced a similar issue, its an asrock k7gs41s I believe. Its also running XP, and I'd rather not format it, unless this would be the only likely fix.

Cheers,
Nic

 

[resu]

im sorry to say I also have the A97 sound stuff in my lappy
one day i was playing happily ... listening to music ... then the speakers started to distort!
i turned off the music and ran some speaker tests and eventually the problem cleared up.
next time i turned the laptop on i didnt hear anything .. when i went to play music i got the error "media player cannot play the file as there is no audio hardware present"

i had a look in device manager and my sound stuff wasnt there

restarted the system and it worked fine again

but a few days later the windows seems to think that the audio hardware does not exist in my machine!! its so frustrating!
i contacted acer and they said to return my laptop to factory settings ... which didnt work
so acer wanted to take my laptop from me ... for 8 weeks!!!! i cant realistically be without my laptop for more than a week as i need it for work, presentations and university.
even though my laptop is still in warrenty period they will not give me a like for like transfer!

in the end and bought a really nice creative 5.1 external sound card and its really good!

should have been £45 but because it was the last one in stock at comet they sold it to me for £20

tho i really would like my on-board sound to work again because lugging external speakers about isnt really handy.

so i guess my advice is to expect the worst and buy another sound card preferably creative!


if anyone has any suggestions i woudl love to hear them!!

thanks

 

[Ph30nIX]

Unfortunately I dont think its worth spending money on, can anyone think of an idea that doesnt involve formatting?

 

[turbo1]

what do you mean "audio on his PC stopped working"? no sound at all,beeps or anything?cant play music?player plays music but no sound? is your brother using built-in speakers? i know you maintain computers but it could help telling what happend before the audio disappeared.

 

[Ph30nIX]

Well it was working normally, but no audio now. Basically it wasnt showing up in device manager as even existing, but i managed to get it recognised with correct drivers, but doenst seem to lay anything. Windows media says "No audio device found". I have also tried an older soundcard, but it doenst have the greatest drivers to start with so didnt really help. I can hear the windows beep (normally internal piezo) , but it comes out the speakers quite loud.

I have practically tried everything i can think of to no avail.

 

[resu]

you can pick up a simple creative sound card for about £10 now im sure of it

I think the AC97 is the worst thing in the world! lol i mean i wouldnt mind so much if there was enough support for it but there isnt
the people who make it ... (realtek i think) surly must have had so many complaints about it ?!

 

[turbo1]

seemed nothing wrong with the speakers....Have you tried re-startting the windows audio under windows services? try first stop then re-start.if it didnt work,you can go down to the properties & in the dialog box,general tab,start type,at the drop down box,try both manual & automatic,apply & start.it should re-fresh the service somehow.

 

[resu]

seemed nothing wrong with the speakers....Have you tried re-startting the windows audio under windows services? try first stop then re-start.if it didnt work,you can go down to the properties & in the dialog box,general tab,start type,at the drop down box,try both manual & automatic,apply & start.it should re-fresh the service somehow.

how do i get to this fabled "windows service" ?

thanks

**** i tried it but it doesnt seem to work :S im gonna have a mess about with the manual/automatic and restart my computer see if anything develops (here goes ****

 

[resu]

nah it didnt work for me