No shows at this stage

[Shigy]

I've tried getting it to work under both XP and Windows 7 and no joy getting volume levels right. So at this stage there won't be any shows until I can figure this out. I've just spent the last 4 hours trying to get this to work over multiple operating systems...so I'm gonna go over to this corner now.

[Sneakpastu]

Sorry to hear you are having such troubles Shigy. *Frowns*

[Xebinon]

Sometimes when things just aren't working right and all the things that should fix them won't, it's actually the hardware failing in a way that you wouldn't think hardware could fail. You might be surprised at some of the bizarre effects I've seen from a dying capacitor. Fortunately, capacitors are designed to be visibly deformed when they're starting to go bad. Weak parts on the top and bottom will split and let electrolyte leak out slowly instead of maintaining the pressure until it explodes.

Well, usually...

Anyway, when nothing else is working, it's worth taking a look.

Good luck!

[Shigy]

I think its more of a case of this onboard sound not putting out enough volume. At this stage I'm looking at just going and buying a cheapish soundcard.

[Xebinon]

Actually, that's exactly what happened when the capacitors on my motherboard started to go. The onboard sound just gradually faded over the course of a couple months so that I was slowly cranking up the volume on the external speakers. It was so slow I didn't even notice until the distortion from the cheap amp in the speakers got annoying. There were some capacitors that were just slightly bulged so that the metal top was split and the electrolyte was visible, and one was leaking out the bottom badly enough to push itself further away from the motherboard. Replacing those was cheaper than buying a sound card and much cheaper than replacing the motherboard. Even if you're not going to be using the onboard sound any more, I wouldn't trust a burst capacitor to not drip electrolyte somewhere dangerous and cause worse problems.

[Shigy]

You may be right but I hope not because this is about a 3 week old motherboard because the last one died heh.

[Xebinon]

If they're only three weeks old, it's highly unlikely that the capacitors have worn out, but it's possible that one of them was defective to begin with. How's the return policy where you got it? Taking the board out and visually inspecting capacitors is a pain in the ass, but if they're defective, at least returning it is easier than replacing them yourself. It wasn't an "open box" or refurbished unit was it?

And if you think I'm a little obsessed with this idea, you should meet the guy at my work who desolders, removes, and electrically tests all the capacitors when something goes weird. He collects the good capacitors from broken equipment before it gets thrown out, just in case a capacitor like that needs to be replaced later. He's something of a nutjob, but he does manage to fix a surprising amount of stuff that way. Kinda makes you wonder if electrically charged goop in a little aluminum cylinder is really the best way to design those circuits in this day and age.