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Cannot get Audio from new Alienware Desktop

K

Kris

Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
618
I recently purchased an Alienware desktop for my girlfriend. It's the Auroa 3500 and has the following specs:

  • ASUS A8N-SLI N-Force 4 motherboard
  • Athlon 64 3500+
  • 1GB of DDR PC3200 (X2 512MB sticks)
  • EVGA Nvida Geforce 7600GT

If I turn everything up to the maximum I can get such a faint hint of sound that I have to have osmething extremely loud on just to barely hear it. I've verified everything is in the correct ports and is setup properly in the system.

I've verified that mute is off and the volumes are way up. I have re-installed the drivers. I have even booted to a LiveCD of Knoppix which found the correct drivers but did not work.

At this point I figured it was a hardware issue with the audio controller on the motherboard (I tried 2 sets of speakers and 1 pair of headphones with no luck).

I went and installed my Santa Cruz sound card into this new computer with the same result (couldn't hear practically anything except for a faint whisper of sound if it was cranked all the way up). I've verified that this card works fine but when installed in this system it doesn't.

What's going on? I'm so confused as to what the issue could be now that it does it with my PCI sound card. There are only 2 things I can think of that would cause this weird situation:
  • Some really weird motherboard issue with sound
  • Some sort of setting (possibly in the BIOS) that needs to be changed that I cannot find

Any recommendations? I'm pulling my hair out at this point!
 
Try This go to control panel, double click Sounds and audio devices, Go to the audio tab and make sure that its using the correct sound chip under default device. and just for S&G click the "use only default devices" checkbox at the bottom so it dont get switched back to anything else.

If that dont work then grab some headphones or different speakers and test them out, sounds like it could be a speaker problem.
 
I've tried what you mentioned as well. I would like to point out that I have tried 2 seperate sets of speakers (1 was 2 speakers in an LCD, the other a 2.1 system) as well as headphones. All work correctly with any other device/computer but not with the Alienware.

I would like to add that I can sometimes hear the audio very very very faintly (like if it's a very loud sound and I have my ears to the speakers).

I've found several threads within Alienware's private forums (http://support.alienware.com/Forum_Pages/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=538012 if you have access) as well as other forums with the same motherboard and this appears to be a common issue. Several Alienware techs on their website said the motherboard needs to be replaced so I'm going to contact their tech support to see about doing this.

I even cleared the CMOS for S&G with no luck.

If anyone else has experienced this please chime in.

Thanks
 
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