Onboard Sound Buzzing

Discussion in 'Sound Cards and Speakers' started by Nobody, Sep 13, 2011.

  1. Nobody

    Nobody Geek Trainee

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    Sorry if this belongs in the Motherboard section.

    Long story short(er), acting on bad information while replacing a shorted cable on a family member's PC, I tried to plug a generic male-male 3.5mm audio cable between an Antec-Lansing AVS300 subwoofer & the onboard line-out (green) port on an ASRock M3A770DE motherboard. After discovering that the system didn't produce sound, I began standard trouble-shooting procedures and quickly discovered that Speaker -> Subwoofer & Speaker -> PC are separate wires, that both of these are hardwired to the speaker, that the owner was mistaken and Subwoofer -> PC was never the problem in the first place.

    The only sound the onboard audio produces now is a near-constant, sometimes morse-code like buzzing similar to other electronic interference which goes away when I move the (USB) mouse and returns when the mouse is stationary for any length of time. The VIA HD Audio Deck still recognizes 'Jack Status Changed' if I (dis\re)connect speakers, but it also sometimes says that when I haven't changed anything.

    I tried various things as a precaution: Rebooting, leaving PC unpowered for a while, reinstalling audio drivers, confirmed the speakers work on another PC and that other working speakers (headphones) do not work in the same port, confirmed that onboard audio is still enabled in BIOS, that the VIA HD Audio does not have exclamation marks in device manager, verified that audio channels were not muted and that a sound file was playing while testing. I also took the motherboard out and checked both sides for any obvious damage but couldn't find any.

    The subwoofer provides power to the speakers, so I imagine it tried to power the onboard audio port and blew out a fuse or capacitor or something. I purchased a sound card since that's liable to be the bottom line here, but the existence of the C\Sub port, the lack of more obvious signs of failure and descriptions by other users experiencing similar problems for different reasons make me wonder if it's not some other problem.

    Any other suggestions?

    System Specs:
    OS: Windows XP
    MoBo: AsRock M3A770DE
    CPU: AMD Athlon II x2 250
    PSU: OCZ ModXstream-Pro 500w
    GPU: Ge-Force 9600 GT
    RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (x2)
    HD: Western Digital Caviar 500GB

    Thanks - and if you're still reading, sorry for the length. =p
     
  2. Wildcard

    Wildcard Big Geek

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    Hi,
    To me it sounds like what you are thinking as well, that the subwoofer ended up damaging the onboard audio when it got plugged into it. Does the new audio card resolve the problem or does it still happen after that is installed?
     
  3. Nobody

    Nobody Geek Trainee

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    Thanks for responding.
    Yeah, the sound card works fine. I just wanted to make sure it was necessary.. It's not a big deal to use the card, I just was hoping the motherboard wasn't permanently damaged. It is *frumple*.
     

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