With more searching I found a driver for the first board, accepted by XP for Realtek AC97
But still no sound produced
After these, plus an Asus A8V Deluxe that also produces no sound even though driver shows no issues, I reckon on-board Realtek sound is just plain fragile
better to keep quiet and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
That could be it. Or perhaps something specific with those chips, their drivers, and XP. Would be interesting to try another OS. Maybe Windows 7?
An HP DC7700 motherboard did something similar to me recently where the AC97 just disappeared randomly from Device Manager and no more sound after that. But that was with a SoundMax onboard audio, so I can't imagine this to be the same problem. However, I will note that both the HP website and Windows Update had some specific patch for that that fixed my problem.
So that's why I am suggesting a different (and possibly newer) OS - just for an experiment.
just checked my similar K8ns-pro
if you have a 10pin front audio connector, you need to put a jumper across 5-6 and 9-10 to route the autput to the back.
After these, plus an Asus A8V Deluxe that also produces no sound even though driver shows no issues, I reckon on-board Realtek sound is just plain fragile
Could be that too. It seems strange that the sound went out on both boards and no device in Dev. Manager. Certainly doesn't sound like an SB BGA issue, especially since those VIA chipsets likely don't get hot at all to cause that.
However, now I also recall having a computer with an Asus A8V-MX where the sound disappeared is a similar manner (I don't remember if the sound devices disappeared from Dev. Manager, but they probably did because I remember trying to reinstall the drivers several times). Long story short, I found that the problem was caused by a wrong driver for some other device I tried to install on the board. I don't remember how I spotted that, though. Also, that board had an ALC653 chip, which could be similar to what you have.
If that's not the issue, then I wonder if Gigabyte just did something wrong with the board design to cause that. Check AVDD (pins 25 and 38), DVDD (pins 1 and 9), and VRef (pin 27) voltages on the Realtec ALC655 chip on your board and make sure they are in spec.
Originally posted by stj
if you have a 10pin front audio connector, you need to put a jumper across 5-6 and 9-10 to route the autput to the back.
That shouldn't make the audio disappear from Device Manager, even if he didn't have those jumpers.
Maybe there's some water creeping beneath some BGA? What I always do when I clean PCBs with water is hold a gasolene funnel to the end of my shop vac hose (shop vac hose hooked on exhaust of course) and then blow the heck out of every crevice. You'll see droplets of water flying out at light speed. You've got to have a good powerful shopvac, like the ones construction people use with a powerful motor.
"We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."
Maybe there's some water creeping beneath some BGA?
Mockingbird is on the money
Before having another go with compressed air turned all the way up to Eleven, I decided to remove the northbridge heatsink
To find a smear of water down one side of the chip - right side in the attached pic
So I sprayed it all over again with Isopropyl alcohol, then finished off with compressed air, a bit higher than previous but nowhere near maximum
Afterwards, the problem of losing CMOS settings was fixed
Unfortunately on-board sound hasn't come back - maybe I'll have a look at voltages on the ALC655 later, although fineness of its pins is a bit off-putting
Comment