Hello,

I have AMD-Athlon 64 Bit system with Windows-XP (SP2) and RealTek AC97 (ALC850) soundcard.

I got 'EAccess violation' error message from RealTek when I tried connecting audio tape device to my PC using Line-In. Since then whenever I try to plug into Line-In, I get this message and the audio is played only through the left speaker.

While attempting to figure out the problem, the sound became more and more scratchy and finally stopped completely for both system sounds and other playback.

I installed latest driver from RealTek Website and finally managed to get rid of scratchy sound but a new problem has started now; the speakers go mute soon after the windows log-on sound. I can play any music only after manually re-enabling the RealTek driver through device drivers screen. I have checked every single setting mentioned in Windows Troubleshooting and they are all correct. Any idea why this is happening ?

The problem with Line-In still exists. Also if I run RealTek sound manager-> connector sensing, the result always shows that front speaker & Line-In connections are not properly plugged in even though the speaker connections are right and there is no Line-In. Could this be a hardware problem ?

Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

I guess I have managed to resolve this problem now. Knowing that the sound was OK at the start-up I closely watched the events and came to conclusion that it was 'Sound Manager' in the start-up programs that was altering the system. 'Sound Manager' is installed as part of the RealTek driver installation. I disabled this program during start-up and the problem disappeared although the sound had a lot of echo (like in the 'Hall effect' setting of equalizers).

I found that 'Sound manager' was actually configuring the output sockets on start-up and while doing so the 'front-speakers' socket was being treated as 'Line-in'.

For those who use RealTek AC'97 and have problems such as no sound at all or no sound from particular channel, it might be worth doing some quick checks of speaker configuration using following steps:
1. Double click sound manager icon in the system tray and open speaker configuration screen.
2. Select the appropriate (2 Channel, 4 Channel or any other) speaker system suitable for your set-up. You may use 'Auto Test' button to check that the speakers produce sound.
3. Open the 'Connector Sensing' screen. Select the appropriate bracket (the sockets you want to test).
4. Click on 'Start' button to start sensing the connections. Sound manager will show you present configuration of the sockets with any attached devices such as mic or speakers. Close this screen and come back to connector sensing screen.
5. If you feel the sockets are wrongly configured, click on the 'Correction' button shown just below each socket on this screen. This will allow you to make corrections in the settings telling sound manager what the connected device is to be recognized as. Select appropriate radio button and click on OK.
6. Close the sound manager.

I also noticed that in addition equalizer settings of sound manager are very much active in addition to the ones provided by playback software such as Media player or WinAmp.

Thanks to all those who took an effort to read my post and tried to help me.