# new hard drive, no sound



## dogger (Apr 6, 2006)

Sorry, you seem to get this question a lot.
Yesterday I had an additional hard drive installed on my Dell Dimension 4600.
The 2 drives I have are:
Maxtor 7L250RO
WDCWD1200JD-75GBBO
The old drive being 120GB, and the new 250GB (sorry, I'm not sure which is which - I'd hazard a guess that the Maxtor is the new drive, but can't be sure).
My sound card is SoundMAX integrated digital audio. I've updated the driver, but that hasn't worked, and of course I've checked all of the settings, connections, run the troubleshooter etc.
I've phoned the shop where the hard drive was installed, but they say it is nothing to do with them, they just installed the drive.
Sound doesn't work on speaker or headphone, by the way.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2006)

If it quit working exactly when they installed the HDD then they did do something to make it quit working. It could be ... depending on where you have your speakers/headphones actually plugged in (for instance on the front panel of your case) that they may have knocked the Front Panel connectors off of the motherboard to the case. Or, if you already had most of your PCI slots taken and they added controller card to the first PCI slot for your hard drive it 'might' disable onboard sound automatically (some OEM PC's are set up that way). They may have also entered your PC's bios to make sure the hard driver showed up properly and inadvertantly disabled onboard sound. Or they could have knocked something loose or damaged it (very unlikely but does happen). Look in your device manager and your soundcard properties to see that you see the message "the device is working properly" and go from there.


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## dogger (Apr 6, 2006)

Thanks T_Rex, I agree, they must have done something, but it is a bit like taking your car to the garage. All they have to do is look you in the eye and deny it. To be fair I think he will take a look - he's just so condesending he'll make it sound as if I've done something stupid. Never mind - I'll have to take it back next week, which means no sound until then. Annoying because I needed the extra memory for CDs & DVDs I was going to rip to my ipod this weekend (and yes, I do own the originals!).
I don't know enough about the BIOS to tinker there; the speakers plug into the back, and the headphones the front, so that seems unlikely; device manager seems happy with everything, and the soundcard considers itself enabled and trouble free.
I'll trot off and investigate BIOS - see if I can find any info that will allow me to take a peek without causing any damage.

Thanks for all the advice.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2006)

If you are not getting sound from the front panel it's likely that you need to inspect the FP wiring from your case and possibly have it reattached if it was knocked loose. From what you are saying it sounds like you were able to use both the front panel (case front) jacks and the rear without issue before, and now ... neither of them are working right? Also be sure you check the control panel/sound settings to make sure your wave slider is not muted, and also your realtek (or whatever sound you have) confuguration utility (usually in the lower right corner of your taskbar) is set correctly for volume and not muted. To get to the bios depeding on what kind/type of PC you have you usually tap the delete key, or F2, or F1 as you boot until you see the BIO/s screen. The main menue of the bios should look like this somewhat.











Many times the onboard sound is in the integreted preripherals section and you go into that section until you find this~










Make sure it's enabled. Save - exit.


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## dogger (Apr 6, 2006)

Many thanks T_Rex. Nothing is muted, and (thanks to your help) I have checked the BIOS - sound is enabled. I very much hope it is as simple as a loose/knocked connection. I really like this machine - which is why I opted to add memory rather than replace the whole thing. I've never had a days trouble with it, unlike the PB I had previously.
Thanks again, I really appreciate your help.


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## Guest (Apr 7, 2006)

No problem Dogger, and if you don't get the sound to work i'll link you to a soundcard that is extremely cheap, but better than nearly any onboard solution and can be had for less than $15.00.

link


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