Greetings! I've recently run into an increasingly irritaing problem with my aforementioned mobo's integrated sound. With increasing frequency, my computer boots with the playback devices section of the windows volume control saying that the speakers are unplugged. The first time this happened led to the (hopefully erronous) conclusion that ME2 was to blame - after having left it unplayed for several months, I started playing again after downloading the latest story DLC, whereupon the sound (specifically the voices) became hideously quiet and tinny. The next time I booted my computer, the "This device is not plugged in" problem occurred. I redownloaded and reinstalled the latest sound driver, and the problem was fixed. However, the problem has returned at least seven times in the last two months. Each driver reinstall fixes the issue. Come to think of it, the audio jacks on the rear I/O have never worked. Not sure if that's relevant. Speakers are plugged into the headphone jack at the front of the case. I bought the mobo second-hand about five years ago (don't know how long the previous owner used it for), and am running Vista 64-bit (reformatted last October). Is there any way to fix this issue on a more permanent basis, or should I just pin the issue on the integrated sound and get myself a dedicated sound card (been looking for an excuse to do that for some time)?
Try the latest drivers (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5B/#download) or the latest BIOS for your board. A dedicated sound card doesn't sound like a bad idea too: The ADI chipset on the P5B is ollllld now so things have improved a great deal.
There's a thought - the ADI driver never worked on my machine, claiming that "the audio files do not support your computer hardware." I've been using the latest SoundMAX sound drivers since I formatted and reinstalled everything last year. The BIOS was updated to the latest version (do they call the process "flashing"?) some time ago. Not sure if this is relevant, but when I run error scans for my primary HDD (Hitachi Diskstar 160GB), HD Tune reports a few damaged blocks (0.1% damaged, apparently). I've been running this as long as the P5B, but bought it new. No ill effects have been directly observed as a result of these damaged sections, and no SMART errors have been reported. I'll see if the problem is due to the drive degrading by uninstalling the sound drivers from the primary disk and installing them to the secondary disk. Come to think of it, I have no idea why that didn't occur to me earlier. Derp moment. Is it possible that I've been installing the sound drivers to the same damaged sections every time? My thanks for your assistance in this matter. Edit: Ah. After uninstalling the SoundMAX driver, every sound driver I can find that's compatabile with my system now claims that "the audio files do not support your computer hardware." So now I have no sound, and I can't fix the problem. Rats. Edit Edit: Rebooted machine, sound appears to be working again. No idea what drivers it's managed to find... I think I'll save myself more misery and get myself a sound card.
