# Speakers not working



## NightFlower47 (Jul 30, 2007)

Ok, one day my speakers are fine, and then the next day I can't get them to play any sound at all. I know the problem is not the speakers themselves, because I have hooked them up to other things and they work fine. My computer just seems to not want to play sound through them. I have onboard realtek HD audio 7.1 and am using logitech 5.1 speakers on windows XP 2005 media center edition. My Motherboard is an ASUS P5W DH deluxe. 

The problem started when I was recording a cassette tape to my computer through my line in port. Things were going fine, and then all of a sudden things started acting screwy. First the audio I was recording started jumping from way to low to extremely loud, then started randomly choosing which channel to record. Then I kept getting notifications saying that my speakers were being plugged in and unplugged into random jacks when I didn't even touch them. I've recorded cassettes to my computer before and nothing like that has ever happened to me before. 

I quit recording and restarted my computer. I no longer had any sound, and still kept receiving notifications. I unplugged the speaker jacks, uninstalled the audio driver, reinstalled the audio driver, and plugged the jacks back in. No more notifications, but still no sound. It's been that way ever since. 

I went through everything common in the windows help file: Nothing is muted, my speakers are connected into the correct jacks, my speakers are plugged in and turned on, the sound device is turned on and enabled, and is selected as the defalut device (its the only sound device), windows says the device is working properly, I'm using the latest drivers, no hardware device conflict, and the sound is turned on in the bios. 

After trying everything I knew how to do short of reformatting my hard drive, and being unable to find much help online, I gave up on getting them to work for a while. I installed a pair of usb headphones I had to see if they could play sound. They did, so I just got by with using those for a while. But ONLY the usb headphones worked. If I plugged a pair into the headphone jack on my sound card, or the headphone jack on my speakers, I still wouldn't get any sound.

Plus, even though the usb headphones would play, I still seemed to be having some sound issues with them. Depending on what I would try to play, some sounds would be distorted and scratchy, some applications would have sound at a very low level, and I never seemed to get full sound quality out of the headphones no matter what I did. There always seemed to be a background static or interference noise. The problem was not that the volume was up to high on something either.

Eventually I got around to formatting my hard drive. Among solving other issues I was having, I thought maybe finally, my sound issues would be resolved with a fresh start. But to my dismay, I installed the sound drivers once again only to discover that I still had no sound, even though everything kept telling me that everything was working fine.

Is there anything I can do to get my speakers working again? Is it a problem with the realtek hd audio? Would investing in a new sound card solve the problem? If so, which soundcard would you recommend I buy? If buying a new soundcard will solve the problem, or is the only way to solve the problem, I am willing to spend up to $100 for a good quality one. I would use it mainly for movies, and also for music, and would need it to support my 5.1 speakers. The higher the sound quality, the better. I would like it to be better quality than the realtek at least.

I'd appreciate any help I can get with this. I don't know what else to do at this point.


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

Hi, welcome to TSF :wave:

Try this:
Uninstall the Realtek drivers. 
Download and install the updated drivers from *Realtek*.
Download and install this update from *Microsoft*.


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## NightFlower47 (Jul 30, 2007)

Nope. I just tried that, but i still don't have any sound.


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## Deleted090308 (Jan 25, 2007)

I think the onboard audio is gone. 
If you want to buy a sound card - have a look at the X-Fi series from Creative.


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## Yantorsen (Feb 13, 2008)

I am having the exact same problems as you but with vista and different hardware.

did replacing sound card fix this?

cheers.


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## Yantorsen (Feb 13, 2008)

Yantorsen said:


> I am having the exact same problems as you but with vista and different hardware.
> 
> did replacing sound card fix this?
> 
> cheers.


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## NightFlower47 (Jul 30, 2007)

Yantorsen said:


> I am having the exact same problems as you but with vista and different hardware.
> 
> did replacing sound card fix this?
> 
> cheers.


Yes. I bought a new sound card and the speakers worked again perfectly. The problem was the onboard audio.


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## Yantorsen (Feb 13, 2008)

NightFlower47 said:


> Yes. I bought a new sound card and the speakers worked again perfectly. The problem was the onboard audio.


Right, cheers mate


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