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I bought a lap-top today. An Asus notebook Z99F something or another. Yay me. Everything appeared OK with the installation process, etc., except one thing: no sound. I have investigated the problem to the limit of my technical ability, and I can't see that XP even recognises that there exists any hardware sound device. This is very annoying. I paid a lot of money for this machine (well, seen as a percentage of my meager monetary assets anyway) and I need it to work properly NOW. Going back to the store and have them ship the computer off to no-one-knows-where, where some technician will prod at it for three weeks before hopefully returning it in usable order does not seem as an attractive prospect.
So is there anything I can do on my own to get the sound to work? Is this a hardware problem or can it be fixed by twiddling with/installing some software? I sent off an email to Asus' technical support but I have low expectation for that avenue. Any pointers/ideas from the technical savvy people at Hatrack will be muchly appreciated!
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I think I'd need a little more information before I even took an educated guess. Are you saying that there's nothing listed under Control Panel under "Sounds and Audio Devices?"
I will also note, if all else fails and it's an emergency situation, that there are external USB sound devices from companies like Turtle Beach that sell for around $40.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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If you bought it today, you should be able to go back into the store and they can swap it with another machine. Especially if it's same day.
Posts: 1572 | Registered: Jan 2004
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It's possible that the sound got turned off in the BIOS for some odd reason. If you hit the Delete key when the computer first starts up (or F1 or F2 or F10, or some other button to get into the bios. It's different for each company, usually), you should see an entry for on-board devices, where you can turn the sound hardware on and off. If that isn't the problem then there is likely a connection that isn't connected.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:I think I'd need a little more information before I even took an educated guess. Are you saying that there's nothing listed under Control Panel under "Sounds and Audio Devices?"
Precisely. Everything is greyed out under "sound devices" and there is no options to choose from.
quote:If you bought it today, you should be able to go back into the store and they can swap it with another machine. Especially if it's same day.
Possibly. I have a sinking feeling that they will ship it off to support instead since I've unpacked the thing and it can't be ruled out that it is a soft-ware error that I caused by some mishap during the installation process.
quote:It's possible that the sound got turned off in the BIOS for some odd reason.
I am attempting to get into the BIOS without luck so far. [Edited] OK, so I got in. I couldn't find any specific listing for sound devices, but used the "reset to manufacturers settings" without result. Then I turned off the quick booting option and now I get a beep and an error message ("media test failure") when rebooting.
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So I went back to the store and they very graciously exchanged the computer for a new one. After an hour long installation process I predictably discover that this specimen suffers from the exact same problem. Words of which PapaJanitor would approve cannot adequately express my feelings. I don't have time for this.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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What are you installing? I haven't bought a lot of laptops, but they've always come with all the basics fully installed. My guess is a driver issue. Either the sound driver wasn't installed, or the wrong one was.
You may want to contact Asus. If you've had the problem with two different computers, it may be something they've heard of before, and can help you with.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I'm not sure what you mean by "installation process." Open the computer up the instant you get it, and see if you have a sound device. If not, don't take it out of the store.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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The computer came with windows XP home edition plus a number of other programs on the harddrive. However, they are not installed. You turn on the computer, and they all basically install themselves. Whatever, I am returning this one too and won't get the same model again.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Speaking that this is a laptop, some lower end laptops do not have sound cards installed. You may want to check if there is suppose to be a sound card at all.
Posts: 224 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Actually, I wondered about that and also put it as a question in the e-mail I sent to the support. However, according to the manual it was supposed to have a sound card. And it wasn't THAT low end... I mean, the machine has a dual core processor, 1024 RAM, built-in web-cam, DVDRW and 80 GB harddrive. Why should it not have a sound card? Does the manufacturer believe people won't miss sound?
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by OSTY: Speaking that this is a laptop, some lower end laptops do not have sound cards installed. You may want to check if there is suppose to be a sound card at all.
This hasn't actually been true for a very long time. Sound is easilly integrated into the motherboard now, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any motherboard anywhere without sound (including laptops).
If you go into the device manager (control panel-> system-> hardware tab-> device manager) you should see a number of listings under sound, video and game controllers. If that group is not listed, there are no sound drivers installed. If there is also no group that says, "Other devices" and if there is no "multimedia audio controller" in that entry, then you need to install the drivers. This being an ASUS computer, you actually have to install the drivers for sound to work. The computers come with windows installed, but if I remember correctly, none of the ASUS computers I've worked with have had anything but the OS installed from the factory. You should have a disk or two that came with the computer. Pop those into the drive and install away.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Hum. Let's start with basics. Is it completely, 100% certain that the laptop does, in fact, have sound hardware? I mean, can you actually see the speakers?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Well, this have been a lot of angst over nothing. I checked and there was indeed a driver CD included. After much installing, lo and behold, there is now sound. I feel somewhat stupid. Thanks everyone for your suggestions and support.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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