Abit KV8-Pro sound problem

[JGard]

I've had this m/b since the summer and there's been one nagging problem I cannot fix. The sound doesn't work. The board has an onboard Altec97 sound board. It's got front panel connectors and Fibre in and out ports on the rear.

Basically, I'm just trying to use headphones for now. If I plug them in, the software (ABIT AUDIO EQ) recognizes that the device has been plugged in and it sets the port for the appropriate device. However, I get no sound from it whatsoever.

Today, I just tried to plug my headphones into the jack on the front panel of my case. Mind you, both USB ports on the front of the case have been working properly, supplying power when needed and everything. However, when using the headphones, I finally get some sound, however, only in the left ear. If I pull the left ear away from my head, I can hear a very faint sound from the right ear, but it's almost inaudible.

To remedy this, I've been running my old SoundBlaster Live card, but I'd really rather not be using it. I'd also like to take advantage of the Dolby Digital 5.1 fibre jacks.

Any ideas? I've emailed Abit about this, but I don't expect an answer from them. Thanks.

 

[daniel49]

well at the risk of being obvious first two things I would check are #1 if they are cabled correctly from the motherboard to the front sound ports<
#2 check to make sure that the onboard sound is enabled in the bios.

beyond that I have never heard any mb onboard sound that I thought was worth the trouble the quality tends to suck. Including the onboard I have on my abit kv8 max3.
There are many good cards out there that support dolby 5.1 and beyond.

 

[JGard]

While it's true there are better cards, I could never get teh 5.1 to actually work on my SB Live! 5.1 card. I'm using the digital out into a Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 speaker set, and it'll only recognize L and R, and it's always been that way.

Perhaps I should just upgrade the sound card altogether...