Cannot get the sound to work

BusMgr · April 5th, 2005, 05:35 PM

I have put together a new system with the Asus A7V400-MX, AMD Athlon, and W2K Pro OS. The board has onboard sound. We installed the drivers that came with the MB CD. I cannot get the sound to come on.

We also went in and installed a Creative 24 SoundBlaster PCI card. We disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS and and installed the PCI sound card. Same results. We reverted back to the original onboard sound. (ADI Soundmax 6-channel CODEC)

We get the yellow ? mark on the device manager for the Audio. Three different persons in IT have worked on this, and we are not making progress. We even disabled the PnP option so that we could manually install the sound, all with the same results.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Regards,

BusMgr

fakan · April 5th, 2005, 06:11 PM

do you have the latest bios installed ?

ocher_raindrops · April 5th, 2005, 06:23 PM

Well maybe I am stabbing in the dark here, but have you tried another stick of RAM. Reason I ask this is.......as far as I know......The onboard sound and the PCI sound will use seperate controllers. If you are experiancing the same problem with both then it is probably not related to the motherboard. I notice that you said the "device not working properly" icon was next to one of the sound devices, is this also true with the other? Sounds to me like either a conflict (rare I know these days) or a problem with RAM.

Anyone else have a clue?

fakan · April 5th, 2005, 06:27 PM

wondering if it cant be IRQ problem

When you installed your sound PCI card have you tried to change the PCI slots on your mobo to see if you get the same effect ?

ocher_raindrops · April 5th, 2005, 06:39 PM

I was thinking conflict as my second answer. After thinking about it a little more I am almost certain it wont be. 1st, Conflicts are rare as rocking horse poo and 2nd) If the device was conflicting I am sure that the XP would be able to adjust the IRQ without any intervention. I am quietly confident it is a RAM issue.

fakan · April 5th, 2005, 06:43 PM

hmm I think if that would be a ram problem it would effect more things than just a sound.

You never know I guess

you might test the ram www.memtest86.com just create a floppy boot up and run the memtest for couple of seconds

ocher_raindrops · April 5th, 2005, 07:15 PM

one or two transistors in a RAM chip could cause a fault like this. I have never known a problem this stubborn with sound before but I have known similar faults which have been caused by dodgy RAM.

RAM not an area you want to save money in!!!

DarkAlman · April 7th, 2005, 03:13 AM

I have to agree with these guys, check your RAM

Also make sure the sound card is in the lowest slot on the mobo, ASUS boards optimize the lowest PCI slot for sound cards

jrsweger · April 7th, 2005, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAlman

I have to agree with these guys, check your RAM

Also make sure the sound card is in the lowest slot on the mobo, ASUS boards optimize the lowest PCI slot for sound cards

Explain then the fact that the onboard sound doesn't work?

DarkAlman · April 7th, 2005, 04:09 AM

huh?

you mean the lowest slot trick?

sorry I should have mentioned that has nothing to do with the issue, it just improves sound quality.