Sound Issue with ASrock X58 Extreme...

[railven]

I finally got my new system up and running and have been enjoying it.

I just got one issue, and I'm not sure if it is a driver issue or an option I keep missing.

I remember on my old P45, you could change the source on the Realtek HD Audio Menu by right clicking the jack, and then manually setting what is connected (IE I'd have headphones on Blue (Line-In).) I noticed I can't do that currently.

On top of that, hooking up my surround sound through either SPDIF or direct (blue/orange/black) I get no audio through SPDIF and only front L/R through direct.

I can't find anywhere in the options how to toggle the SPDIF on (as that would be the preferred method, but if direct is my only option fine.)

Basically, I can't use surround sound and I don't know why. I used the latest driver from Realtek R2.46

If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Oh, sound system is Logitech Z5500


Setup:
Windows 7 Home Premium
Intel i7 930
ASrock X58 Extreme
Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 2GB
3x2 G.Skill Pi DDR3 1600 7-8-7-7
Corsair 750w

I think that covers the basics.

 

[railven]

Rather than making a new thread, I'll add to this post.

I figured out one of my issues (how to get sound over fiber optic - I had to wiggle the wire, and set Digital to default (was hoping I could stream through both analog and digital.)

But I can't for the life of me figure out this other issue.

I use to have an MSI P45 Neo3 FR, which used the ALC 888 and I just recently upgraded my girlfriend's PC to a Giga-byte MA790GPT-UD3H which uses the ALC889A.

My ASrock X58 extreme uses the ALC 890.

Both the MSI and Giga-byte could do this option, yet the ASRock can't for whatever reason:

I could go into the Realtek HD Audio Manager, right click an input, and change its source. On our old builds I had to use audio splitters (which I'd prefer not to since I paid more for this board than any of the other two.)

Basically, I use 2 speaker setup for every day use, but headphones for when the girlfriend is asleep. I can't use the front inputs because a mishap broke one of the jacks (works if you wiggle it, lose connection.)

And now that I type this out I realized because of that I didn't bother to connect the front header (removing it completely.)

But would that cause me this issue? Where I can't manually select inputs because I didn't connect the front header?

 

[Micheal307]

It probably is a compatibility problem.

 

[railven]

It probably is a compatibility problem.

With Windows 7?


Anyways, I did some research on my own and found a few things:

1) the ALC890 isn't listed on Realtek's website which led me to believe its either a custom chip for ASRock or a counterfeit.

2) the ASRock website doesn't call it the Realtek ALC890, just simply the ALC890.

3) According to ASRock tech support, if the drivers don't fix my issue I should contact the vendor.

4) According to Realtek tech support, this chipset doesn't support audio routing.

Waiting on a response from Realtek if the ALC890 is a genuine Realtek product.

Eitherway, I'll have to fix my front header. Rummaging through the Realtek dump file, it seems only one jack supports H-Phn, and that is most likely the front header. D'oh!

 

[railven]

Last note on this subject. Realtek, after multiple E-Mails, has addressed my question with the ALC890 and authenticity.

They claim it is a special part made for ASRock and because of that they won't guarantee 100% functionality with the Realtek Driver and Software. They also won’t provide a tech sheet for the product. All further requests should be redirected to ASRock.

While having ASRock on E-mail chains too, they pretty much said:
1) RMA the board.
2) contact Realtek

They ignored my question on whether the ALC890 was a genuine Realtek product.

After a lot of tweaking I finally got the surround sound to work, but noticed a big hit is performance when running 5.1 @ 24bit/96khz. In games like CoD where there are lots of sounds I saw dips in my FPS roughly 20-30 drops in spots I never had dips before (running on 2 @ 16bit/96khz.

Just going to buy a third party soundcard for now. My sound setup is too complicated for the ALC890 to handle and on top of that the performance drops weren’t welcomed either. ALC888/889 in my previous boards handled it well, not sure what they strippde for the ALC890 to make it cost effective.

Again, avoid the ALC890 when you have the change, all other features on the board work fabulous (I was one of the lucky ones based on reviews) really disappointed with the audio features.