Hello,

I have a Gigabyte GA-8I945GMF motherboard with on-board Realtek sound. This is a fresh install of the OS. I have installed all the drivers (started with Intel's inf update, then realtek, then BIOS update), and Windows appears to see the audio device properly (no issues in device manager). I have "Speakers" set as default playback device, with the speakers hooked up to the green audio in jack.

Here's the strange thing: I have the volume mixer open, with media player in the background playing a song. In the volume mixer a green equalizer-type bar is pulsing along to the silent music being played, while in the "applications" section, the Windows Media Player equalizer is inactive.

Has anyone else had this problem, or solved something similar? Any help would be very welcome.

Cheers,
Ste

Just so I'm clear: I have no sound from the PC at all, but the volume mixer seems to disagree. The same headphone jack connection to my reciever works with my laptop, so it is an audio output problem on the PC side.

S

The first thing to check is there are multiple spots to manage audio - At the control panel, at the volume mixer, and at the application. Since you show signal, I would suspect you have an incorrect output device selected somewhere.

Hi, thanks for the response.

I have "Speakers" selected in the playback devices under control panel's Sound interface. When I play audio in Windows, the green bar next to it also bobs up and down as if it should be playing. I disabled the Digital output underneath "Speakers".

Cheers,
S

Are you using SP1? Because a lot of audio issues were caused by manufacturer's not providing updated drivers for SP1. I know updating caused me horrible problems.
Don't actually have experience with that board but you should post if you are using SP1 or not.
You might even try uninstalling it and see what happens.

Good point - I do have SP1. Unfortunately, I am on a network that requires the latest windows patches to be installed before it allows me onto the web.

S

Realtek has a piece of managment software that lets you chose which ports(audio jacks) do what. Perhaps it has been misconfigured and is outputting your audio to another jack, or is configured with no audio jack. I think it may be called Realtek Sound Manager, and the file may be named SoundMon.exe

Edited for spelling (gross neglegence on my part).

Aragorn, you may be onto something...

I had the realtek HD audio device installed properly, and tried to then (separately) install the Ac'97 driver (which has SoundMon inside). It would not let me install it. Vista would repeatedly pop up the "driver is not signed" warning and the progress bar would never move after this warning. I downloaded the latest version that should be compatible with Vista.

S

Thanks for the reply, I hope the new version works. Keep us posted please.

Hello all,

I come armed with new information!

It turns out that I **DO** have audio from the rear Line Out (greek jack) - it was just so quiet I couldn't hear it with my reciever at normal levels.

If I turn the reciever all the way up, and then max out all audio sliders on Vista, then I can hear whatever the PC is doing, accompanied with a lot of background hissing (unsurprisingly).

I have an ALC882 chip - I have used the drivers found on the motherboard manufacturer's page (Realtek 1.87) and also tried installing Realtek 1.94 - the latest drivers from the Realtek site. Both give the same results.

One other thing - in the Realtek sound manager, all ports that do not have anything plugged into them are faded out - apart from the digital ports, which do not actually exist for this board. I do not have any front panel hooked up to this motherboard. Is this causing confusion? Can I use some kind of jumper configuration to disable the front panel headers or something?

Any help is VERY much appreciated - wasted two days on this thing so far.

Cheers,
S