Problems with audio driver and DirectSound

I'm hoping this is the right place to put this, because I think the problem is driver related.. my problem is, my computer will not play DirectSound. The test in dxdiag fails, and in one of my games the music won't play (which is why I looked into it in the first place). Other sounds like mp3s and such play. I have Realtek ALC880 HD audio, and my driver is the newest version, version 5.10.00.5273 from Realtek's site. I had to get the newest driver recently when I got my new 5.1 speakers, because the other one didn't seem to recognize them at all. That fixed it and they work fine now, but since then DirectSound doesn't work. I have the latest version of DirectX, 9.0c and any updates for it, also. I have no idea what to do about this problem, does anyone have any suggestions?

Im not sure how this thread has not been looked over but...

If you go to Start > Run > type in 'dxdiag' with out the quotes. Click on the sound tab. From there turn the slider down untill you can hear the sound.

What you also may want to do is uninstall your sound drivers then reinstall them and do the same to DX as well.

Hope that helps.

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You registered for QuakeCon on April 30, 2008, 6:56 pm. You were # 366 to sign up for QuakeCon!

I've already tried both turning down the acceleration, and reinstalling my sound card drivers, have done so several times. Still doesn't help, I'm afraid. I've emailed Realtek a couple days ago and am waiting on a response.

What operating system are you running? If you have Server 2003, XP 64bit or XP Media Center some hardware developers have not prep'ed drivers for them still or they may have not published that you would need another version of the driver.

I've had problems loading drivers on 2 of the 3 I've mentioned above in the past.

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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."-Ken Olson, founder of DEC, 1977.

If you've completely removed the sound drivers and installed the newest version of Direct X AND reinstalled the newest RealTech audio drivers and it still fails,
Either:
A) The hardware is bad (surprisingly enough such things can happen)
or
B) The driver simply doesn't support DirectSound in your current configuration. Have you tried it in 2.1 speaker mode?

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My OS is WinXP Home. I also just bought my computer from newegg a few months ago.. and since my mp3s and other sound formats play just fine, could it really be a hardware issue? I think more it'd be an incompatibility issue with my driver and DirectSound like you said, but if so, what options do I have? With the older driver the speakers didn't work period, with the newest driver they play everything except for DirectSound. Would a driver for something other than the ALC880 work possibly? Also, how do I switch it to 2.1 speaker mode? (I've tried changing the speaker settings in Sounds and Audio Devices in the control panel to each speaker setup, if that's what you're referring to).

Check Direct X. I did some research and it looks like Direct X may not be running properly.... in fact when you install it it may be defaulting to your old sound card or settings for your old. Check the sound tab on dxdiag for that.

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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."-Ken Olson, founder of DEC, 1977.

Unfortunately, it isn't that either.. http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k191/Astarael87/ Those are pictures of my audio manager and the two directx sound and music panels, and as you can see, they say the same version. In the sound panel, the sound test fails at all of the accelerations, but in the music panel, the one testing Microsoft Synthesizer does work, but the other 2 below it fail.

I emailed Realtek a week ago, and still no reply from them. :\

- Playing with dxdiag didn't work.
- Reinstalling DX and the driver didn't work.
- You're running XP Home so it has supported drivers.
- It can play music and normal audio, so it works.
- The card (as found by the website) supports 2D/3D DirectSound so the the card should play it in Stereo and up modes.
- DX is on the right driver for the right card.

Sorry Man. I'm stumped. ?

This may be a dumb check, but bare with me. Could you reseat the sound card and see if that works?

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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."-Ken Olson, founder of DEC, 1977.

I am going to suggest uninstalling the sound card.

Physicaly remove the card from the computer. Boot up the pc. Then in 'Device Manager' uninstall the card. I guess uninstalling DX as well. Then power the pc down and install the sound card again, with the latest drivers and DX9.0c.

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You registered for QuakeCon on April 30, 2008, 6:56 pm. You were # 366 to sign up for QuakeCon!