Sound card mysteriously vanishes
Since a power outage my on board sound card hasn't been showing up in lspci or anything. It's as if it's not there. And I had a look in my BIOS since someone suggested the settings could've changed -- the only options there for the soundcard were "Auto" and "Disabled". I haven't a clue what "Auto" could mean.
1. So is there a way to fix this? last time I installed Ubuntu it automatically configured my sound card for me. This time it did nothing.
2. Or else do I need to buy a new mobo? How do I shop for one sensibly? is it as simple as walking into maplins and saying "I needz a mobo lol" or will they rip me off?
1. So is there a way to fix this? last time I installed Ubuntu it automatically configured my sound card for me. This time it did nothing.
2. Or else do I need to buy a new mobo? How do I shop for one sensibly? is it as simple as walking into maplins and saying "I needz a mobo lol" or will they rip me off?
Post edited by wilsonsamm on
Comments
what's the UK equivalent of newegg.com? where you can buy computery bits online
I wouldn't buy a motherboard from Maplin, you'll pay over the odds and they don't have a great choice anyway.
Why buy a new motherboard. I guess your PC has onboard sound which is what's not working, but if everything else still works you could just get a PCI (or PCI-e?) soundcard. Getting a new motherboard can be a real PITA because your model will no doubt be obsolete and all the new ones need different RAM etc.
The only other suggestion if all that fails, is to try and clean the contacts on the card and reinsert it into your PCI slot. Suffice to say if the card is working, then it should be listed in the bios. If bios isn't picking up the card either it is not seated in the PCI slot correctly, the card is dud, or your PCI slot has just died.
You can diagnose if it is faulty pci slot simply by testing another card in that particular slot.
If BIOS has detected the soundcard, but Windows produces no sound try this:-
If on the other hand the card is detected (it is listed in the bios) but you've no sound, then it could also be you need sound drivers installed. Under XP go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager. Now look for Sound, Video and game controllers. If their are any entires with explanation marks, then that means no driver is installed (in which case you will need to re-install the drivers for your soundcard).
Good luck, and let us know how you get on...
erm, why? There's no reason you can't have an onboard soundcard and a PCI one working at the same time...
He's not using Windows it says so in the post...
Well dunno why you would want two sound cards, unless you need to.
I missed that bit as just scanned through the post...
Remove card, boot up, see if it's detected as "not there" .
Turn off, re-seat card, re-boot and see if it's detected again.[/strike]
( It's on-board you ninny! -Ed )
You just looking for decent places to order computer parts? If so, you cannae go wrong with any of these places...
Scan - personal favourites. Great speedy service. Only ever had 1 problem (my GTX260 1792Mb nVidia card), they took it back tested it and got me a new one out pronto - which was pretty good as it was when we had the shitty snow at the start of 2010.
eBuyer - Been a while since I used them, but they have been OK.
DABS - Never used them myself, but know a few people that swear by them.
steam you just down the road from scan.. in reality.. soo they should be better if that makes sense.
ebuyer.. above excellent , easily spent ?4-5k with them.. had issues 2 times in 7 years.. 1 was the courier being light fingered.. another was "not as descibed".. both times they were on point and made me realise how good they are
wilsonsamm
you can get to windows ? what windows is it ? after logging in press windows key + break (or windows + pause on this pc)
hardware tab > device manager > scroll down to sound , video
see if it's listed.. and if so if it's disabled etc
He's on linux... that's L I N U X ie. not windows :p
if it's an onboard it'd prolly be an ac97 or realtek.. I'd suggest running speccy on it.. but thats a windows app.
it should show up in the device manager in Ubuntu though
are you sure ya plugged in the cable into the right socket when you re-wired it up?
The setting should be on Auto. This means the machine automatically allocates certain resources for the part in question (in this case the sound chip) which saves you the hassle of doing it. Although its normally irrelevant now, in days of yore (MS-DOS and early versions of windows) you vary ofton had to do these setting yourself and it could be a right royal pain in the butt if two cards were asking fore the same resources. Frequently happened with early modems and sound cards. With all modern operating systems this problem is sorted out for you 99% of the time so its really now just an on / off switch.
If Ubuntu isn't detecting it all all (with the bios setting on auto) then good odds its knackered. However I have had occasions when Ubuntu has found a device but has disabled it due to having no drivers or the drivers are commercial. You don't say what version Ubuntu your using but all the more recent ones have given a warning message saying what the problem is (and offering to install / download commercial drivers).
If the rest of the machine is working then I wouldn't bother with a new mobo. You can get a perfectly good pci soundcard for less than a tenner from a number of sources. Your best bet is probably your local computer shop, they will sell cheap cards. Even the likes of PC World have them at less than ?20.
Ebay has a number of soundcards with linux compatibility for less than a tenner - http://computers.shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_nkw=linux&_sacat=44980&_dmpt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_SoundCards&_odkw=&_osacat=44980&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313 although a fair few of those are the dongle type external ones.
It also might be worth reading http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449 which is a comprehensive troubleshooting guide for sound problems on Ubuntu before you splash the cash out.
Whenever I build myself a new games machine it always has two soundcards, the onboard and a decent one.
The onboard goes to the monitor speakers and the decent one to my surround sound setup. Some games don't play nice with onboard cards and need a decent card plus the sound is (nowadays) designed for 5.1 or better so I might as well use it through a good amp and speakers to get the best out of it (plus the extra volume through the surround sound). The onboard is fine for DVD's or similar when the monitor speakers do the job fine and I don't need or want the extra omph.
Also my tzxing machine has two soundcards, the onboard wired to the Plusdeck and the external so I can use a separate cassette if needed.
As for its disappearing and reappearing, it's all fairly mysterious. I am positive it hasn't been there yesterday or the day before. Can that be a symptom of knackered hardware?
Anecdotal evidence from someone else with the same problem as you suggests the culprit may actually be Ubuntu itself. Before you go buying any hardware, try downloading a live CD of a different Linux distro and running that a few times, to see if sound works there.