No sound via onboard sound, sb live, OR audigy

[agnitrate]

Built a relative a computer made from a Chaintech VNF-250 mobo + Athlon 64 3200 and Windows XP w/ SP1 already included. Onboard audio didn't work initially after loading the drivers from the motherboard CD. I attempted to install an Audigy and received no sound from this either. I finally gave up and attempted to install the old SB Live she had in her old computer and still got no sound.

I use two sets of speakers to test this: the speakers inside the monitor (crappy, but should work) and her regular computer speakers. I'm fairly certain this is not a hardware issue but rather software.

A friend suggested running Knoppix and seeing if I get sound in there. Has anybody else had any trouble getting sound to work straight out of the box? Any suggestions on things to try?

I feel really bad her sound isn't working and would like to rectify this as soon as possible. Thanks for any replies.

[edit] UPDATE at bottom [/edit]

-silver

 

[Ryoga]

First, I'd download the latest chipset drivers. Those on the CD were what was avaiable at the time the board was manufacturered, and things often get updated between then and now. I'd also make sure DirectX 9b is installed.

As a test, open up an audio file with Windows Media Player and look to see if the visualizations are dancing or not. If they dance, then it's decoding and playing fine, it's just not outputting correctly. You can also run dxdiag and try the sound tests there. Knoppix seems like a good idea, too, although I don't know if it comes with mplayer or not anymore (I assume so).

Open the Sounds & Multimedia properties from the Control Panel. (I'm in Win2k, but it's the same IIRC.) Under the Sounds tab turn on the Volume control taskbar widget, and open that up to make sure nothing's been muted. Under the Audio tab, check the Preferred Device settings and the volume settings.

 

[agnitrate]

Originally posted by: Ryoga
First, I'd download the latest chipset drivers. Those on the CD were what was avaiable at the time the board was manufacturered, and things often get updated between then and now. I'd also make sure DirectX 9b is installed.

As a test, open up an audio file with Windows Media Player and look to see if the visualizations are dancing or not. If they dance, then it's decoding and playing fine, it's just not outputting correctly. You can also run dxdiag and try the sound tests there. Knoppix seems like a good idea, too, although I don't know if it comes with mplayer or not anymore (I assume so).

Open the Sounds & Multimedia properties from the Control Panel. (I'm in Win2k, but it's the same IIRC.) Under the Sounds tab turn on the Volume control taskbar widget, and open that up to make sure nothing's been muted. Under the Audio tab, check the Preferred Device settings and the volume settings.

All very good suggestions. I know I uninstalled the drivers that came with the mobo after they didn't work initially and installed the latest nforce drivers from nvidia. I also checked the visualizations in media player because I've had that as an issue before. The volumes are all at levels that I should be hearing.

I don't recall if I checked the devices or not, but I know I switched it from onboard->SB live when I testesd that out, so I don't believe that's the issue. Thanks for the advice though!

-silver

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'd do a format and reinstall. This time I'd install xp+sp1 then latest forcewares.

 

[L1FE]

For the nforce 2 maybe see if the onboard audio is disabled in bios?

 

[agnitrate]

UPDATE:

Ok guys, I tried the Knoppix idea and still no sound. I yanked the speakers and tried them on my comp and they worked, unfortunately.

I'm going to try and do the reformat and see how it works. I'm sure the onboard audio is set to 'Auto' in BIOS. I might even try a bios upgrade and see if that can't hurt. Any other suggestions while I'm at it?

-silver