I'm running a computer with the following specs:
OS Windows 7, Ubuntu 14.04
HDD0 256GB SAMSUNG 840 EVO
HDD1 300GB SEAGATE
HDD2 2TB WEST DIG BLUE
HDD3 750GB DELL ENTERPRISE
HDD4 750GB DELL ENTERPRISE
RAM0 4GB G.SKILL RIPJAW DDR3 1033
RAM1 4GB G.SKILL RIPJAW DDR3 1033
PSU 550W THERMALTAKE SMART SP-550PCBUS
GFX 1GB NVIDIA 550TI
CPU 3GHZ AMD ATHLON II X4 640
MOBO R2.2 GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3
I just had a minor upgrade. A friend upgraded to new hardware and I took his motherboard, because it supported DDR3 RAM (yeah, this actually WAS a gaming machine before I upgraded from 4GB DDR2 @ 401MHz
. How did I ever live?)
In any case, my previous motherboard was a Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H
and everything worked perfectly, even if a bit slow.
But after installing this new motherboard, I'm having trouble with the audio. At first, I installed the OSes and everything worked except sound; Neither OS could even detect the device. After some searching I realized that the previous owner had disabled it on a bios-level, because he uses sound cards, something I've never done/felt the need for before. It's worth nothing that he had actually never used this onboard audio, and would not be able to tell me if this is a long-standing issue.
So I enabled it, and it worked. At least, partially. Both OSes now detected the device, but I still get no sound. To boot, on Windows 7, I have this annoying Realtek audio manager that pops up whenever the input changes (e.g Putting on headphones). And this is where it gets weirdly glitchy.
To my eye, the audio behaves well enough, until it is actually called upon. At this point, it becomes buggy as hell. The audio manager says I've plugged in a different device and asks what it is (it never remembers), but this doesn't matter because I have not changed the audio input.
From the first time that panel opens, all hell breaks loose. That same config manager window pops up frequently and randomly. Many times in one minute. It's apparently haywire and I don't know how to stop it, except to finally disable the device in Dev manager.
Another observed behavior is a little more helpful to my untrained eye; In Ubuntu 14.04, the audio manager has a similar sporadic and shuffling behavior once called upon. Only the GUI is more telling. It very rapidly enables and disables headphone input, so that the previous two options (digital out, analog out) becomes three (digital out, analog out, headphones out). When headphones are actually put in, it freezes back to two options, but it's never the right one. Using headphones actually disables the headphones option.
I've tried upgrading the bios and drivers as well as re-connecting a few wires inside (AC'97 jack <--> HD Audio jack) but they've done nothing to help the situation. I have no audio and if I dare to try, my computer becomes paralyzed with its own pop-up dialogs.
If there's a soft-level fix, I really want to achieve it. I don't want to have to buy an audio card. Even as a strict hobbyist, I guess if I had to buy a card I would. It's just so damn inconvenient to need one this time, taking up a PCI or PCI-E slot.
Has anyone ever dealt with this? Is there a fix that doesn't end in my buying a sound card?