Sound not working in the tower.
October 15, 2004 - 10:26pm — gfair
Might as well call it home networking - I want to network the sound supposed to be coming from the PC, through a set of wires and speakers, to my ear canals. But the sound doesn't come out.
The CM Stacker Coolermaster box has its ports at the top, and the USB doesn't get any power and the mic jack doesn't recognize my earbuds. I'm not sure if it's a driver thing or a missing wire. Left in the box is a wire very similar to the one already connected, and there is an identical port on the motherboard, but I haven't the foggiest clue how to determine what the problem is.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
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Sounds like the motherboard c
Sounds like the motherboard connections aren't connected to the ports. I had this happen with a custom built PC as well -- the store only connected the rear ports, not the "special" ports on the front.
Time to crack open the case and start playing with the motherboard. You should have gotten a manual that describes the layout of the motherboard. Look as well at the sound/USB cables that are connected to the rear ports.
One missing cable
I went inside last night and noticed one spare cable. Plugged that in, as it looked identical to another, and after some narrow maneuvering managed to slide the connector down on the pins. A restart produced no results, hardware is no different than it was before.
There are six USB ports, one mic and one speaker jack, and one FireWire port on the front. Of these I can only test the USB and speaker jacks. The USB ports are in a 2 rows by three columns configuration. Four of the six ports work because the mouse works in all of them. The two other USB ports are dead, as is the speaker jack, no idea about firewire and speaker. And that is after the new cable and testing.
I've gone over the diagram and noticed the front audio connectors labeled, i'll try to see if they are connected.
Motherboard side of cables is OK.
Ok, the motherboard diagram confirmed that the proper cable is plugged in - still no sound. I'm guessing then that the wire for the audio jack is plugged in to another port on the front-panel hardware. Ugh. On the bright side, the front ports are in a 5.25 bay and the entire front of the full tower is 5.25 bays (12 in total) and I wanted to move the panels to the bottom since the top of the case is high for a full tower.
Now the problem is figuring out which port is the right one - the motherboard came with a diagram, I didn't see one for the case. I've contacted Cooler Master on the issue and might inquire with NCIX as well, see if they have the diagram handy.
Turns out that the extra cable I plugged in was for the USB ports, two of which still don't work. Maybe that is a USB bus issue or something. Anyway, I'm surprised the sound hardware wasn't working, and what a hassle getting it to work. First big "Welcome to Windows" disadvantage I always harped about as a Mac user, and now get to experience as a Windows user.