New computer, new Vista Ultimate, NO SOUND

[bdavis]

I built a new computer. It has an Intel DQ965GF mother board. It is running Vista Ultimate as an OS. After endless pain the device manager accepted the SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC as its driver for the sound card. When running the Intel audio interface and testing, the interface shows that sound is happening. Nothing comes out of the speakers, however.

One of my problems that I'd love some help on has to do with my speakers (which work beautifully on my old system) connecting to the new computer. The speakers are a 5 speaker home entertainment system. The four peripheral speakers connect into the sub-woofer. A single lead comes out of the sub-woofer and into one of the spaces on my old Sound Blaster card. The sub-woofer, obviously, acts as a tuner. The new card does not seem able to handle this configuration. Here's what Intel has to say about the card on the mother board:

Below is the section from the Intel web site that speaks to my situation. There are three holes in the sound card for sound inputs. One is green (B), one is blue (A) and one is red (C).


Configuring 6-Channel Audio
Installing the audio driver from the Intel® Express Installer CD-ROM enables the flexible, analog audio system. The back panel audio connectors support up to six speakers and are retaskable using the audio driver interface.

Item Description
A Line In [retaskable as Rear Left/Right Out]
B Line Out [Front Left/Right Out]
C Mic In [retaskable as Center/LFE (Subwoofer) Out]

Connect speakers as follows:
• If using two speakers, connect the pair to connector (B).
• If using four speakers:
o Connect the front left/right speakers to connector (B).
o Connect the rear left/right speakers to connector (A).
o Using the audio driver interface, retask connector (A) to be Rear Left/Right Out.
• If using six speakers:
o Connect the front left/right speakers to connector (B).
o Connect the rear left/right speakers to connector (A).
o Connect the center/subwoofer speakers to connector (C).
o Using the audio driver interface, retask connector (A) to be Rear Left/Right Out and retask connector (C) to be Center/LFE Out.

The full web site that Intel sent me to is:

http://www.intel.com/support/motherb.../CS-020642.htm

Can these speakers work with the intel sound card on this mother board? And if so, how should I set it up.

Thanks for any help that you can give me.

Barry

[pip22]

Your problem is almost certainly caused by the Intel driver's incompatibility with Windows Vista, as confirmed by your statement that the same driver and same speaker setup works fine on Windows XP.

Alas, many early-adopters of Vista have fallen foul of driver incompatibility. Unless a particular driver is stated by it's developer to be 'Vista compatible', then it most likely won't work or won't work properly. The hardware manufacturers are currently playing "catch up" with their drivers which is why many who realise this situation have put off buying it even on pre-installed new systems until the drivers are available for the printers and scanners they already own.

In your case, anyone intending to build their own system, or install Vista on an existing one, should first ascertain if Vista drivers are available for each piece of hardware they have (or intend to buy) before going down that route.