P8Z77 no sound over optical or coax (no LED on optical)

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Koween

Limp Gawd
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May 24, 2012
Messages
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Just built a htpc with a Asus p8z77 and a 3570k. Have an older Denon receiver that has no HDMI, but has TOSLINK and coaxial. Before this I used an old acer prebuilt pc with a g45 chipset and a q6600.
I built a S/PDIF adapter plate that connected to the motherboard and it worked well. There were some issues making the thing work but in the end it worked. I came back after vacation and there was no sound.
Built another system (the one with the 3570k) and still can't seem to get any audio. Neither TOSLINK nor COAX seem to work. The weirdest thing is that the TOSLINK LED that should shine behind the "door" for the optical cable is dark - both my other PCs have that LED shining constantly when on.
Is there some weird windows 10 setting I'm forgetting? Checked BIOS - everything should be working. The TOSLINK LED does not come on when cable is in (cable is dark).
 
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Have you grabbed the latest Realtek drivers for your specific board from Asus?
 
I have that mb and same cpu and use optical out with no issues. Red light is on. So long as it is enabled in the bios it should be working.
 
Newest drivers from Asus and output is set to "Digital output (Optical)". I will try to mess around in the bios, must have missed something.
Just tested with another PC and optical works fine.
Seems windows is not actually using the optical output on the htpc as it stays dark, even though it's selected as the default audio output.
 
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Just an update:
Updated BIOS to the newest version, reinstalled windows, tried different realtek driver versions. The realtek control panel shows that there is something connected to the front panel jacks (both headset and mic icons are lit up), but I have not even connected the front panel cable to the motherboard header. Connected it just to test and there is no difference. What's more - it does not even register if anything is connected to the rear jacks. There is no audio and it always shows that there's a headset connected even when there is none. Unless there is a master switch to enable the sound card (other than the one in BIOS) I've concluded that the sound card (or part of it) is damaged - probably ESD, as I can't find any physical damage on the board itself. It's a used board so that may be possible...
 
Try pressing the optical cable harder to the board. Sometimes they're stiff and fail to activate because they're not deep enough.

Be careful not to bend the cable or break anything though. The optical fibre can damage if you twist it too much.
 
B00nie said:
Try pressing the optical cable harder to the board. Sometimes they're stiff and fail to activate because they're not deep enough.

Be careful not to bend the cable or break anything though. The optical fibre can damage if you twist it too much.
Click to expand...
I tried wiggling the cable, but the bigger issue is that the optical port is not lit. I'm quite certain the sound card part of the motherboard is pretty much dead, as there is no sound over analog outputs and it does not detect of anything is connected there. A usb sound card works fine.
 
Koween said:
I tried wiggling the cable, but the bigger issue is that the optical port is not lit. I'm quite certain the sound card part of the motherboard is pretty much dead, as there is no sound over analog outputs and it does not detect of anything is connected there. A usb sound card works fine.
Click to expand...

If there's any wiggle in the port it means you didn't press it hard enough to lock it in place. It should click in and not move at all once it's in place.
 
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