No sound on PC speaker

[jasewes]

Hi...I am having difficulties with the sound on my PC..I have via chipsets with on board sound. The thing is my on board sound has been working perfectly for ages. I was able to listen to sound both on the internal PC speaker, or connect to my HIFI directly from the o/p port on the back of the PC.

The other morning I turned on my PC and no sound ( althougth I did here the beep codes while booting )...I have since tried several things. I have checked that the drivers are loaded for the AC97 VIA audio device. This is OK...I have also tried connecting a sound blaster card and installing the drivers for this( disabled the onboard sound in BIOS) ..still no sound...this led me to think that it was something to do with windows rather than the hardware.Soooo....I formatted C: and reinstalled XP...then installed the drivers for both the onboard sound and also for the Creative SB...nada..zip...zero...no sound!!!!

Last attempt was clearing CMOS, reformat and reinstall of XP and audio device drivers...

I am really at a loss as to what to do next, and I fear I may have to set something in my BIOS, but not sure what exactly..I chose default options when setting up the BIOS..I have run aida on my PC and it states that the BIOS is two years old and may need upgrading...do you think this could be the problem??

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated..

My system setup is as follows:-

Soltek 75DRV mobo, with VIA chipset.
VT8366 Northbridge
VT8233 Southbridge
Redstorm Flashbios

HITACHI Deskjet Harddisk
Model IC35L060AVV207-0 61.4 gigabytes

Innovation TNT2 graphics card

HP CD Writer Plus 8100 series

Jase+++

 

[Hitman`]

That sounds like quite a problem there, I had a somewhat similar problem with dualbooting windows XP and Red Hat 9. I didnt know how it happend, but the setting in the BIOS that enables or disables the onboard sound device would turn off by itself. It was mysterious and I never did find an answer, but I knew the problem. I honestly dont have a solution, maybe a BIOS update should be in order to correct it. But to my knowledge to aggree with your information, it must definitely be BIOS-related. If yuor have onboard components, look for them in the BIOS, make sure all of your onboard sound options are on. usually, there will be and option for Soundblaster sound, MPU-401 codec, and MIDI controller, make sure all of your options are on and there are no device or resource conflicts in your device manager in windows.

With only the given information in the above post, this is all i can say at the moment about this strange anomoly.

 

[Liquidlen]

Sometimes it can be simple. You did not mention audio software controls. Look at mute , volume levels.Just a thought!

 

[xtrmn8r]

i have a soltek 75drv4, and the sound is working on this. if you would like to go through the bios settings then pm me some more details...

 

[Liquidlen]

Originally posted by jasewes
.Soooo....I formatted C: and reinstalled XP...then installed the drivers for both the onboard sound and also for the Creative SB...nada..zip...zero...no sound!!!!

This statement sounds like you have both a sound card and onboard sound installed.I have never heard of a board that uses both!I don't know your board so check the documentation ,but I bet you have to disable one of them. Especially since you stated later that you loaded the default options in the CMOS.

Or did I misunderstand and you were trying both seperately?

 

[StormBringer]

Re: Re: No sound on PC speaker

Originally posted by Liquidlen
I have never heard of a board that uses both!I don't know your board so check the documentation ,but I bet you have to disable one of them. Especially since you stated later that you loaded the default options in the CMOS.

You can use both, I have done it for various reasons.
Having both enabled, you'll have to select the sound device to use from within the Sound settings, you may also need to do so from within some apps separately.

If you aren't going to use both, I would turn onboard off in the BIOS. This would select the SB by default, since it will be the only option available.

 

[Liquidlen]

Thanks Storm I did not know that.I have only built 6 machines and a quick manual check all recommend selecting one choise.(onboard/card)
To solve Jasewes problem would it not be simpler to have only one device enabled.Since it sounds like a bios update may be his only choise.Failing that , a motherboard hardware problem may imply a new one.

 

[honestmungo]

A solution

Hey guys,

I've had problems with my sound the last couple days too. I would install my sound drivers and they'd be running without conflict in my device manager but when I opened my sound options in control panel it showed 'no device'. I went to numerous forums where they all told me to uninstall my drivers and install them again, or to enable sounds in windows or to install non-WDM drivers but nothing worked! UNTIL today. I came across a post(sorry, can't remember where...) that told me to make sure that my 'plug and play software device enumerator' was installed. AND IT wasn't! Installing it was kinda complicated and involved copy and pasting this:

md \temp
cd \temp
copy %windir%\inf\machine.inf \temp\allmachine.inf
copy %windir%\system32\drivers\swenum.sys \temp
copy %windir%\system32\streamci.dll \temp notepad \temp\allmachine.inf

into cmd line and then opening the allmachine.inf with notepad and erasing what was on line 20(or so..)
under the line [ControlFlags]

then adding new hardware through the control panel
select pick a list
and click on have a disk
and choose the allmachine.inf file that is in the c:\temp folder
it will give you a new list of devices you can choose and the 'plug and play software device enumerator'
install it
and then reinstall your soundcard drivers!
done.

*please note* These are very general instuctions. They were laid out much clearer on another post. I wish I had the link for you but with this information I'm sure you'll find it if you look.