lack of volume a sound card problem?

[guypea]

i recently for a radeon hd 5450 replacement graphics card to replace my old knackered one.

but ive noticed the sound on my dell inspiron desktop is now nowhere near what it was, low volume etc even though i have a dell amp and it was great before

all connections checkd

could the problem be related to my graphics card?

if not, where else to check? ive been to the obvious places and all seems fine

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, is the duff graphics card still in the computer?

If so and the motherboard has on board graphics, remove the duff card completely, make sure the on board graphics is turned back on in the BIOS and check the sound then.

Let us know please,

 

Nev.

[guypea]

no i took the old graphics card out

not sure how to make sure the on board graphics is turned back on in the BIOS??

not doubting you, but why would i need to do that cus there is a new card installed

[guypea]

the radeon 5450 card is in there now. i have gone to BIOS to make sure on board sound is enabled

no change

[guypea]

now disabled onboard sound and there's no sound at all.

that presumably means the graphics card isnt working? or installed correctly?

how can i double check?

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, sorry, I didn't know you had installed a new graphics card and thought perhaps the old faulty one was still there. Although sound is sometimes linked to the graphics card it still needs to be turned on in the BIOS.

I meant for you to disable the old graphics and enable on board graphics, not sound, when I thought the old graphics card was still in there.

 

Now I know you have a new graphics card installed, we can go from there, first of all go back into the BIOS and turn the sound back on.

 

Which sound out port or ports are you using please, are you sure you have the speakers plugged into the speaker jack and not a line out jack?

 

If they are plugged into the speakers jack, then open device manager, scroll down to "Sound,video and game controllers", open that and can you tell me what is showing in there, any red or yellow marks?

Also does it tell you the sound system type such as "Realtek HD Audio" or is it some other name?

 

Nev.

[guypea]

green speaker jack in green socket

showing in device manager is...

AMD High definintion audio device (my last graphics card was AMD i think) and...

High Definition Audio Device

both are enabled

i duno if that means my asus radeon HD 5450 is wokring or not

[Armageddon]

Hi Guypea may I ask how your monitor is connected to the pc ?

[guypea]

actually my old graphics card was nvidia gforce, not AMD

its connected with a normal connector (through an adaptor). i havent changed it

speakers (and amp) used to sound fantastic. now i have to have it on full to just to sound adequate

Edited May 25, 2013 by guypea

[guypea]

anyone have any ideas?

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Guypea, took a little bit of searching but found the possible problem I think.

It turns out that AMD High definition sound is actually on your Radeon Graphics card, it took over the original sound system when you installed that new card.

 

Here is part of the spec for the sound system.

 

Integrated HD audio controller

• Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required.
  

 

 

This actually means that the sound is now through the HDMI port on the graphics card and no longer through the ordinary motherboard sound system.

It does now depend on which port on the card you are using for the monitor screen as asked for by Armageddon.

If using the HDMI port already then sound will only appear at the in built speakers on the monitor providing the monitor has them.

 

Let us know which port you are using first please, then we can look around for what is best to use after that.

 

Nev.

[guypea]

first of all, thanks very much for your help on this :)

i have three ports in the graphics card. i was using the smaller blue plug.

i have now swapped to the longer white plug (via an adaptor)

there is also an hdmi socket, which i dont have a connector for

 

since ive used the longer white socket, it seems a lot better. though i had to right click on speaker icon (bottom right), playback devices, right click on 'speakers', 'properties', make levels 100, 'balance'... adjust to 100

if it stays like that its fine, but i noticed after i had done that yesterday that the levels changed down on their own after launching a music file.

thought that was a bit odd

restarted this morning and they were all at 100 though

is there any way of making sure the levels dont go down again? and why would they in the first place?

Edited May 27, 2013 by guypea

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, I don't know why the level dropped, hopefully a small setting up glitch that won't happen again.

However if happy with what you have as it is now, that will be OK for now, and later when I have a bit more time, I will have a look see what I can find in order to get your sound from the HDMI port considering you aren't using it.

I need to go out now, so will look round for something later.

 

Nev.

[guypea]

apparently you can buy hdmi cable to DVI plug, but I duno what benefits there would be?

 

http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/reader.en/product/hdmi-to-dvi-i-single-link-cable.html

[Plastic Nev]

Yes, but in this case we want HDMI to sound so you can connect your speakers to it, They are separate speakers we are talking about here and not the ones on the monitor?

If they are on the monitor then where you are now is the best we can get if the monitor doesn't have HDMI input ports.

 

not found anything HDMI to sound as yet, but will stick with it if needed.

 

Nev.

[guypea]

separate speakers yes (and an amp)

the speakers only have a normal 'plug-in' connector tho

[guypea]

does this shed light?

http://www.mediacollege.com/hardware/connectivity/hdmi/pc-audio.html

seems an hdmi cable would make it sound better?

[Plastic Nev]

Hi again, it can be done but is expensive, that is due to the HDMI sound is still digital, so although there are cables that will split the video away from the audio so that you could just use the audio, you would still need a digital to analogue converter after that.

 

The few and far between boxes I have found so far that will do it all are expensive and intended for TV or home theatre uses, not a simple thing in the way you want it to be.

An example is this=

 

http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI distribution amp_splitter 2 port.html

 

Everyone seems to think that you would want to use the HDMI out to go straight into a similarly equipped TV to use as monitor, and therefore use the TV loudspeakers.

 

I think now that the way you have it by using that as you say long white socket, which is actually a DVI port which for some reason has given you good sound, I would stick with that.

 

Edit to add, I was writing while you posted the link, and from that you can see what the HDMI port is intended for, full home theatre style video and sound, not as a separate monitor ans speakers set up.

 

Nev.