Built a brand new PC on a MSI X870 GAMING PLUS WIFI motherboard (and Windows 11 OS), and literally the last thing I needed to test seems to be pointing to a faulty hardware. It's the onboard audio, and I can't get it to work. After a few days of stress testing and benchmarks and some gaming everything else seems to be working fine and the system is generally stable, with normal temps.
The reason I didn't test the audio earlier is because I have an external Khadas Tone 2 Pro DAC which I use for my audio 99% of the time and I have no need for the onboard Realtek audio, and honestly I kinda assumed that the audio chip would probably be one of the least probable parts to be faulty.
Anyway, I got to test it today. I enable the HD Audio controller in BIOS, download the Realtek drivers from the mobo page and install. To start, I tried connecting my Andoer mic. It's a super cheap one from Aliexpress but it served well enough for me on my previous PC. It's connected to the PC via adapter through the standard mic jack. I connect it and it's recognized by Windows, and when I check it in the sound devices list there is that vertical bar next to it that indicates sound and it's half-green, going slightly up and down around the middle no matter if I make sound against the mic. That's odd, so I launch one of the mic testing sites where you can listen to yourself through your mic, and all I get there is constant static noise, no sing of the mic picking up my voice or any ambient sound at all. On Windows mic test there's no reaction to my voice as well. Okay, it's a cheap and old mic, I think, so it's probably faulty or incompatible or something. I barely use it anyway.
Then I try my headphones, the ones that I use on my external Khadas DAC with my PC all the time. They're recognized and when I play something in Spotify player, the green sound indicating bar in the device list is moving accordingly, but no sound is coming through. Same story when I try connecting from the front through the case 3.5 connector.
I try my bluetooth headphones next, they have a 3.5 cable for wired connection as well. No sound at all when connecting from the back directly to motherboard. And very faint, barely audible sound coming through when connected through the case, no reaction to volume level change though.
My Khadas external DAC is disconnected the whole time, and its app is closed as well. I've used it along with that mic on my old AM4-based PC with Realtek onboard chip for mic, and there were no issues btw. What I tried doing next to troubleshoot: installing a different version of Realtek drivers, playing around with settings in Realtek audio console, changing settings in the audio device properties like sampling rate-enhancements-exclusive control, using the Windows troubleshooter, rolling back BIOS from latest to the previous one, checking if I connected the case audio plug correctly, and finally - loading from an Ubuntu USB via an external SSD. When I loaded into Ubuntu, I tried playing some YT video right away, and again, there was no sound but the device showed as HD Audio family or something like that, so it seems to have been recognized correctly. I then tried connecting the same headphones through a Ugreen 3.5-USBc adapter which has a built-in DAC into the USBc port, and instantly there was sound.
So I guess that last part eliminates any possibility of there being some unsolvable conflict between the Khadas and Realtek audio drivers, right? And unless I'm missing something and y'all could point it to me, it's probably just a faulty audio chip? I honestly could live without it and I would really hate to go through the whole process of building the PC and reinstalling and re-testing everything again, but now I'm paranoid that the whole motherboard is no good, so I guess that's the only realistic option for me now?
Thanks in advance for your replies.
The reason I didn't test the audio earlier is because I have an external Khadas Tone 2 Pro DAC which I use for my audio 99% of the time and I have no need for the onboard Realtek audio, and honestly I kinda assumed that the audio chip would probably be one of the least probable parts to be faulty.
Anyway, I got to test it today. I enable the HD Audio controller in BIOS, download the Realtek drivers from the mobo page and install. To start, I tried connecting my Andoer mic. It's a super cheap one from Aliexpress but it served well enough for me on my previous PC. It's connected to the PC via adapter through the standard mic jack. I connect it and it's recognized by Windows, and when I check it in the sound devices list there is that vertical bar next to it that indicates sound and it's half-green, going slightly up and down around the middle no matter if I make sound against the mic. That's odd, so I launch one of the mic testing sites where you can listen to yourself through your mic, and all I get there is constant static noise, no sing of the mic picking up my voice or any ambient sound at all. On Windows mic test there's no reaction to my voice as well. Okay, it's a cheap and old mic, I think, so it's probably faulty or incompatible or something. I barely use it anyway.
Then I try my headphones, the ones that I use on my external Khadas DAC with my PC all the time. They're recognized and when I play something in Spotify player, the green sound indicating bar in the device list is moving accordingly, but no sound is coming through. Same story when I try connecting from the front through the case 3.5 connector.
I try my bluetooth headphones next, they have a 3.5 cable for wired connection as well. No sound at all when connecting from the back directly to motherboard. And very faint, barely audible sound coming through when connected through the case, no reaction to volume level change though.
My Khadas external DAC is disconnected the whole time, and its app is closed as well. I've used it along with that mic on my old AM4-based PC with Realtek onboard chip for mic, and there were no issues btw. What I tried doing next to troubleshoot: installing a different version of Realtek drivers, playing around with settings in Realtek audio console, changing settings in the audio device properties like sampling rate-enhancements-exclusive control, using the Windows troubleshooter, rolling back BIOS from latest to the previous one, checking if I connected the case audio plug correctly, and finally - loading from an Ubuntu USB via an external SSD. When I loaded into Ubuntu, I tried playing some YT video right away, and again, there was no sound but the device showed as HD Audio family or something like that, so it seems to have been recognized correctly. I then tried connecting the same headphones through a Ugreen 3.5-USBc adapter which has a built-in DAC into the USBc port, and instantly there was sound.
So I guess that last part eliminates any possibility of there being some unsolvable conflict between the Khadas and Realtek audio drivers, right? And unless I'm missing something and y'all could point it to me, it's probably just a faulty audio chip? I honestly could live without it and I would really hate to go through the whole process of building the PC and reinstalling and re-testing everything again, but now I'm paranoid that the whole motherboard is no good, so I guess that's the only realistic option for me now?
Thanks in advance for your replies.
Last edited by a moderator:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram