No audio device?

[DFADFA]

Been searching for solutions for this like crazy, but all I came across were dead ends and solutions that I tried and didn't work...

Anyway, recently I started having a problem with my audio device. I have an Asus A8N-E mobo and yesterday while gaming, I was getting some heavy cracking and noisy sound while playing a game, so I underclocked my CPU a little (2.0Ghz from 2.2) and downloaded some updated audio drivers from the Realtek website. Later last night, I played for a good couple of hours, then the game froze (game is a bit buggy) and had to reboot, decided to call it a night.

This morning, I'm about to watch a couple episodes of Heroes, and media player tells me no audio device could be found. Oh well, I said, I rebooted and expected audio to be back (my pc has done that before... like it boots up without initializing any audio device, but it comes back after a reboot).

Nothing.

So I looked like crazy for other drivers, downloaded and installed about 6 different drivers, none worked. Disabled and enabled back the audio device from BIOS, installed audio drivers from the motherboard CD, nothing I've tried has worked.

Can anyone shine some light on this for me? Control Panel says there's no audio device, there is no little speaker in the taskbar next to the clock.
Device Manager doesn't help alot, since it says everything's fine and dandy, here's the devices it displayes under Sound, video and games devices.
- Audio Codecs
- Video Codecs
- Legacy Audio Drivers
- MIDI MPU-401
- Legacy Video Capture drivers
- Multimedia Control Devices
- Game Port.

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[DFADFA]

Could it be that I fried my sound chip with such a mild OC?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: DFADFA

Could it be that I fried my sound chip with such a mild OC?

Yes, it sounds like you may have fried your sound chip, although it may not be due to the o/c..

If your motherboard is otherwise OK, you may have to buy a separate sound card to continue using the board with sound.

Check the caps on your motherboard. If any are swollen or domed at the top, your motherboard is dying of old age, and one sub-system or another would be the first to show it.

If that's the case, you may be able to rescue it if you're handy with a solder iron, and you can find the right caps to replace them. Qualifying those caps is another discussion. I know. I'm going through that, right now.

 

[DFADFA]

That's what I had feared... especially taking into account the fact that it failed to initialize ocasionally.

I'm going to crack open my case and take a look... maybe flash my BIOS if nothing looks cooked

 

[mpilchfamily]

There is a chance that reseting the BIOS will help. But i agree you may have to drop $40 or more on a new sound card.