Hi. I just finished building my computer and installing Windows 7 (thanks to no small help from this forum). The only things that currently isn't working are the front audio jacks. The cable from the case front has both an HD audio plug and an AC'97 plug, both of which fit into the motherboard. The motherboard itself says "JAUD1" which doesn't tell me which I should use, although the motherboard's driver dvd says HD Audio Drivers. Anyways, I've installed and reinstalled the drivers on the disk and then the HD Audio drivers from Realtek's website. I'm running Windows 7 64bit. The motherboard is an MSI P67A-G45. The front USB ports work, as does the rear audio jack. I've tried both plugs on that cable. I don't know what to try next. Thanks.
Just use the hd audio and there shoul be a specific slot for it. Unistall the ac97 driver and leave the hd one.
I think they include both plugs to ensure support with older tech, HD Audio is the better of the two so stick with that. I'd check in the bios to make sure it's not disabled (although it should be enabled by default) and perhaps look in device manager to make sure it's detected with drivers installed (by the way, never use drivers off a disc, always get the latest online, you can grab all the drivers from MSI's website here)
HD Audio was indeed enabled in the BIOS. I've uninstalled the audio drivers and installed the drivers from the MSI website. The device manager doesn't show any warnings or missing drivers. Curiously, there are NVidia High Definition Audio devices in the Device Manager. Is that normal?
Try opening up the playback devices menu (control panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Under Sound select Manage Audio Devices), can you see any options for front panel audio/headphones? I've disabled motherboard audio so I'm not exactly sure what options will be there, but hopefully it'll be obvious if there is a front panel option.
When I open the Manage Audio Devices window, I don't see anything that mentions the front panel--only Speakers, Realtek Digital Output, and Realtek Digital Output(Optical), and in recording, Microphone and Line In.
I uninstalled all the audio drivers I had installed (there were a couple NVidia ones, though in retrospect those were probably just for the HDMI) and reinstalled the HD audio drivers from the msi website. I still get no front headphone jack or microphone detection. Any other thoughts?
If you have the realtek drivers installed (high definition audio driver) open the 'Realtek HD Audio Manager', look for 'Connector Settings' and uncheck 'disable front panel jack detection' (there's a guide image here). It may also be worth checking you've fitted the cable correctly, making sure the missing pins line up, and it's connected to jaud1 (bottom left of mobo by the looks of it).
thanks for all the replies. I have tried all of the above, including disabling and re-enabling the front audio jack detection, and installing/removing all sorts of drivers. At which point should I cave and buy a sound card, or send it to the shop to be fixed?
I just finished building my new PC 2 days ago, and I'm having the same exact problem, I have the MSI Z68-GD55, I plugged in the HD Audio connector coming from the front panel (I have a HAF922 case) but when I plug a mic or headphones they dont get recognized and no sound comes out (or goes in). I checked the connector three times already and i'm sure its properly plugged in so I'm not really sure what else I can do to fix it.
My friend gave me a great idea yesterday: he suggested running an Ubuntu Live disk and see if it manages to automagically detect the front headphone jack, which would tell me if it's the hardware or my windows installation that's keeping it from working.
I tried running the Ubuntu Live disk and the drivers didn't recognize it there, either. My last test is using my friend's computer with my HD Audio cable, and then his HD Audio cable with my computer. This will show if the cable works, or if the motherboard works, or both.
