[pyritechips]

Hello!
As you can see by my stats, I have on-board AC'97 audio. I have had nothing but trouble with it since I got this comp new in July. I have done a search on it here and thanks to TW56, a very resourceful, knowledgeable and helpful member, I have discovered that this integrated sound has a history of trouble. I have recently downloaded 3 new drivers- no improvement. On 4 occaisions my sound has crashed for no apparent reason. I'm getting sick and tired of reloading drivers and troubleshooting. Of the dozens of articles and fixes and drivers I have found, I have not seen one that works, or anybody that has claimed sucess. I am taking my board back to where I bought it this week. In the mean time, any comments? Have any of you had trouble with integrated peripherals?

~Jim

[Lurker1]

Hi pyritechips

I have an EPOX board with AC'97 audio and it seems to work fine for me. I just use it for game playing and listening to audio files, nothing major. Integrated video and sound are for people who don't need or want much out of their PC. For most normal uses (MS office, winamp) they work fine. If you are running a system with four or more speakers with a sub woofer then you would want an addon sound card. If you are playing the newer games with 3d graphics and shadows, ETC. then you want a non-integrated video card. I have owned a few systems where it didn't matter where the sound was, it just played the sound badly.

[pyritechips]

Hi Lurker and thx for the response:

I have only the 2 speakers built into my monitor. They work, and have always worked, just fine with other computers/sound cards. I don't care about "great sound" on my compter. If I want great sounding music I will use my stereo w/ full size JBL's . But this sound is distorted and like I said I'm tired of having the sound crap out and having to reload the drivers every second week. If I want great computer sound I will invest in a proper sound card but I point is, I paid for a mobo that is new and is supposed to have working sound. Nobody pays for something that "kind of" works "some" of the time.

~Jim

[Dark Star]

Nobody pays for something that "kind of" works "some" of the time.

I dunno bout that lots of people bought Yugo's

Seriously pirate + ships why not just let them replace the mobo under warranty? ... often times a mobo can be bad right out of the box.

btw... the avatar looks great!!!

DS

[pyritechips]

Hello one and all!

Once more I'd like to thank each and every one of you that have helped with this problem. Special thanks to TW56, Firejay, Candy, DS (arr matie!) and I apologize to whoever I have omitted. Less than an hour ago I got my computer back from the store. It was the first time, said the baffled, arrogant p*****, that they had EVER had a problem with AC'97. Ahem!! riggghhhtt! Anyway the solution was to give me a sound card free on warranty. I was glad to take it and got out of there. The sound is now better than ever. So my research paid off and I was vindicated. Again thx, especially you TW56! Get that mic working; I'll be able to hear you now!

Conclusion: After my adventures and the numerous complaints I have found online, I DO NOT recommend this integrated sound to anybody! Invest in a card!

~Jim

[pyritechips]

new sound controls!

<img src= "http://forums.techguy.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=566143">

[wedor]

I have systems with the 8738 onboard, works good.

[pyritechips]

Thx for that Wedor!

When you get a replacement part on warranty you can't go to the parts bin and pick out the most expensive card of your choice! You're pretty well limited to what they decide to give you. Knowing you're happy with yours gives me peace of mind.

~Jim

[newkidtopc]

Hi guys,
i know i am posting on this topic rather late but just thought i would share my experience.
i also have integrated audio and video(intel 815 chipset) with AC 97 (like you did).i have never had a problem with this.though the sound may not be earth shattering it gives me great service just for listening to mp3 songs
could you tell me where did you download the drivers from.i did search on the net but was caught in the technical jargon at the website
cheers

[pyritechips]

Hi new kid!

Try starting here: ---> http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel815/

~Jim

[newkidtopc]

HI pyritechips,
downloaded the drivers and installed it rightaway will se if there is any perceptible change

dont find anything much improved rightnow

anyway i am uptodate now

cheers

[pyritechips]

Hello Once Again!

Just a quick postscript to my above adventures. Today I received a CD from a friend (Thx Helen!). I slid it into my CD-ROM and guess what? No sound! I fiddled and diddled without results. I tried the CD-RW: equally silent.

Aha! I thought. I popped off the side of my tower and what do I see? The same "experts" that accused me of not installing the sound drivers correctly hadn't remembered or bothered to unplug the CD audio line from the disabled on-board connector and plug it into the new sound card!

Moral of this story: NEVER assume that the so-called "experts" know best! Nobody is an absolute authority! Question everything! Rebel! On with the Revolution...!

Sorry, I digress! Happy 'puting people.

~Jim

[pyritechips]

Yet another Post Script:

One oddity I had was 2 instances of joystick (gameport) in the Device Manager. Nobody I asked offered me a solution to this. Trying to remove it in device manager and rebooting only caused it go through the "...detecting new hardware..." routine. I gave up until helping my girlfriend to sort out her PCI cards...

Fact: Joystick plugs into soundcard.
Fact: My on-board sound was disabled in BIOS.
Fact: New sound card (w/ joystick connector) was added.

See where I am going? Aha! I said (yet again), and rebooted into BIOS. Sure enough, there is a separate setting for joystick. I disabled it there, saved changes and exited, rebooted to windows and voila! There is now only one joystick in device manager!

This was a VERY non-critical situation, but I love an uncluttered system (KISS) and I dont't own or use joysticks. The valuable point here is that it was yet another learning experience! For any of you that disable on-board sound and add a card, this may be useful.

~Jim

[brhar05]

Hey Pyritechips,


I got one of those dreaded AK32L motherboards with integrated ac 97 sound. I also experienced the same annoying sound problems. There is nothing i can do?????

It would be great if you could tell me exactly what you did.
I got mine from tiger direct. Hopefully i can return it but if i cant, what should i do?

Thanks!

[pyritechips]

Hello brhar05 and welcome to TSG!

All I could do is go through the process of downloading the latest drivers, with no sucess. The only sloution for me was to take it back where I got it, under warranty. Their solution was to give me a sound card, which works fine. The problem is on the board itself; it's a hardware issue so no amount of software/driver fiddling will fix it (in my case at least). If you have bad sound too I hope it is under warranty so that you can get it replaced, or at least a separate sound card. Below is a link to another site with samples of complaints from other unhappy owners:

http://www.computing.net/beos/wwwboard/forum/314.html

Good Luck!

~Jim