Are you running Windows Vista, or have you done a recent update of XP or Vista? Losing audio with high def devices after installing Vista or doing an update is a common problem and is easily fixed.
Default Device Setting
You’ve done some good troubleshooting to start with. From your information, we can eliminate the speakers or connections as the problem because you can hear the start up sound. The easiest thing to try first is to check the default device setting. Go to Start and then Control Panel and click on Sound and Audio Devices. Click on the Audio tab and see if you can use the arrow to choose another default setting.
Update Drivers
I’m guessing that the solution is going to be to update the audio drivers. Microsoft prefers that you use their Update Wizard that is already on your computer. Go to Start then Control Panel and choose System. Click on the Hardware tab. Expand the Sound, Video and Game Controllers option. Double click on the sound card and click on drivers. Choose Update Driver. From here, you will follow the Wizard’s instructions to update your drivers.
Chipset Driver
If updating your audio driver still doesn’t get you the sound you need, you may need to reinstall the motherboard chipset driver first. From your description, your driver is a Via.
Computerhope.com has a page of chipset drivers for download including the Via for your system. Reinstall this driver and then follow the directions above to reinstall the audio driver.
Once you’ve updated your drivers, your high def audio should work fine. If you’re still having problems let us know, along with some specific system information and any error messages and we should be able to help you further.
Kat Delong | November 19th, 2008
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