Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 5 - No audio

[JuniorH]

The "Multimedia Audio Device" is in Device Manager under Other Devices with a yellow exclamation mark, and no driver installed. Windows can't automatically find a driver for it. I've tried downloading HD Audio drivers both from Gigabyte and from Realtek directly, though it's the same version of the driver, from both R2.79 / 7553. The driver package installs, but no change in device manager.

Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 5. Fresh install of Win8.1, even tried upgrading to 10. Updated BIOS to the latest version, F4, from F2. No difference. The hardware is supposed to be the ALC1150.

Any ideas for troubleshooting?

 

[John Connor]

If you right click the device there should be some kind of hardware ID I think. What is it? I can't say for sure what to look for because I don't have any missing drivers, but I know it's there.

That could clue you in as to what driver to install, despite what the website says. Also, you did use the Win 8 or 10 version of the driver?

Windows 8 64. Says to install the Realtek driver before the Creative SB X-FI driver. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5498#dl

 

[vailr]

I think it may be for the video card's audio output via HDMI; it would normally be included as part of the video driver installation.
If enabled, the on-board Intel video would also have its own HDMI audio output driver.
If only using a separate video card, the Intel video feature can be disabled in the bios setup.
Doing so would also make the "yellow exclamation mark" go away.

Otherwise: try this latest Realtek driver version:
ftp://ftp3.realtek.com.tw/Realtek/GeneralRelease/7673_PG436_Win10_Win8.1_Win8_Win7_WHQL.zip

Win 7,8,8.1,10 x32/64
PackageVersion = PG436
DriverVer= 11/24/2015, 6.0.1.7673

username : spcust
password : hwwk758z

 

[Puffnstuff]

Is hd audio enabled in bios?

 

[JuniorH]

"Audio Controller" and "Audio DSP" are both enabled in BIOS. I've tried older drivers and that newer one from vailr (thanks!) no difference though. I have installed both the Realtek and Creative software, in that order.

CPU is an I7-6700, and I'm using the onboard video. So now it occurs to me that neither the Intel display audio nor the onboard Realtek are working; I literally have no audio devices.

Which is slightly more bewildering. Doubly unsure what to make of it now.

This is the first line from the Hardware ID field in device manager. Looks like it's an Intel audio controller...
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_A170&SUBSYS_A0B21458&REV_31

 

[vailr]

Is there a taskbar speaker icon on the lower right next to the clock?
Check for volume level and any outputs that have been switched to off position.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I would reinstall the chipset driver for the mb. If you have the intel driver update utility run it and let it find the most current version for your system. I had to do this with my tablet just this morning in order to get my onboard sound working again even though everything looked normal. I had a speaker icon in the taskbar notification area and the driver showed fine but when I tried to play any sounds it would fail with an error message. The only way I was able to get it back was by reinstalling my chipset driver and the older version at that.

 

[JuniorH]

The taskbar speaker icon tells me "No Audio Output Device is installed."

The Intel Driver Utility tells me "No drivers were detected for your product." even after I uninstalled the Intel graphics drivers and the PC is using the Microsoft default Standard VGA Graphics Adapter driver.

I can try reinstalling the Intel chipset INF update, see if that does anything...

 

[vailr]

Latest beta bios: GA-Z170X-Gaming 5 - F5d
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html

However: I'd recommend a complete wipe & re-creation of the boot drive partition and fresh install of Windows. If that doesn't solve the problem, then you may have a defective board.
Note: you'd get a similar kind of error if there was no speaker or headphone connected.

 

[JuniorH]

Well, the beta BIOS sort of helped... the audio devices started working in Windows, sometimes, but not all the time. Not sure if it's random or related to changing settings in the UEFI. It also stopped showing video intermittently when booting or rebooting. Restart to UEFI from Windows never worked, or at least wouldn't show video, so I had to power cycle it every time. Completely flakey, and difficult to deal with since I couldn't reliably get into the UEFI to adjust settings.

So I picked up an ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 from Microcenter, installed that, and everything works perfectly out of the box. The Gigabyte shall be returned. Not quite sure if it was an outright bad board, or just BIOS so buggy it's not even functional.

I absolutely appreciate the assistance. Thanks.

 

[daohaus]

Well, sorry to bump this but seems to me like I have a bunk MOBO after reading your post. I have a variant of your Z170 5 mines the MX version. Have absolutely no sound coming out of the back i/o ports all my sounds are coming from my HDMI coming from the my NVIDIA GPU. I'm still within my 30 days so I can take it back and exchange it for another one, such a PITA to have to put everything back together. But on the flip side I dont want to have to go out and buy a sound card when this is touted to have world class audio chipset etc. it's no good if you can't use it.

 

[daohaus]

I'd like to update this for anyone else that might google things. As a last resort I went and launched the gigabyte app center and updated everything once again and did a BIOS update to F4 from the current F3. After the reboot, i looked at the lower right corner where the speaker is and all of a sudden i had REALTEK audio ports showing, not only that but in the hidden icons there was the REALTEK control panel. I went and plugged my optical cable into the back of the mobo and there was LIGHT! but no sound. Light looked a little dim luckily I had a higher quality optical cable plugged it into the mobo and back of my amplifier and voila sound, the sweet roar of prototypes and GT cars running around the track on youtube. I'm so happy right now. But thanks to this post it pushed me to get on with the bios update and couldn't be happier

 

[philobishay]

OK, I found a solution that was not posted previously but seems consistent with postings: Go into BIOS, turn off "Audio DSP". That's it. Hopefully this saves someone hours of angst/ RMA fear.