nForce3 OnChip Audio won't enable anymore

[jamoross]

Greetings!

I've just spent about four hours reading posts hereabouts and
didn't find anything exactly like the problem I am experiencing.

I'm hoping to find some technical info to help me sort out why
my nForce3 250 chipset no longer seems to have any audio.

I have a Shuttle SN85G4 V3 (Athlon 3700+ 1GB RAM etc.)

System worked fine for a couple years running Win2k but about
a month ago I decided (for uncommon reasons) to temporarily
install Vista. I mounted a spare 120GB harddisk and installed
Vista Ultimate (64 bit) from an official DVD.

Oh yeah, a probably pertinent point: As part of my usual routine
when installing a fresh OS, I started with flashing the latest BIOS.

Vista had no sound but that didn't surprise me since I didn't even
try to load any drivers. I played with --er, *studied* Vista for a
couple of days then, deciding enough was enough, started a fresh
install of WinXP SP2. All went well until I wanted to load the audio
drivers. No hardware found. What the...!?

Reflash BIOS. Clear CMOS. Check settings. Nothing.

I re-installed the original harddisk with Win2K still on it. No
audio hardware detected!

More reflashing (with old version) and head scratching.

Anyway, what I'm looking for now is a divine revelation.
Or, a datasheet for the nForce3 250 chipset so I can poke around
at its registers and connections to see if I can re-enable the
audio feature.

- jam

[Paradigm]

maybe see if you can find the ALC version it is using and try using older drivers if you can.....

remove CMOS battery and try again, also see if perhaps there are any Fans that might be shorting your board, NVIDIA chipsets have been notorious for demnanding clear power, see anandtech and one of their reviews for the 790iU
but the most logical of all explanations
the NF3 has chipset's link from the NVIDIA collective must be broken


NVIDIA like creative have made sure they provide no link with EOL products (atleast NVIDIA has stopped point blank with support unlike Creative which wants to charge for support), which is unlike INTEL and VIA where almost (correct me if i am wron) support all features of their chipsets for quite some years

[jamoross]

Salutations, Paradigm.

Thanks for taking time to respond to my post.

I'm aware of nVidia's launch&forget style of product support,
what I was hoping for was old information still lying around on
somebody's bookshelf (or CD rack as is more likely nowadays).

One thing more I have learned is that I can't even use a
separate soundcard. I found an old Creative SoundBlaster
Vibra and plugged that into my single PCI slot. The card is
recognized by the BIOS (gets an IRQ assigned during POST)
but once Windows comes up the Device Manager puts a
yellow mark on it. (I/O resources not available.)

It seems the gameport/MIDI adapter wants to use any of
three I/O address ranges (0200-0207 is the default) but all
resources in the range 0200-02FF are "unavailable".

If I had technical data on the nForce chipset, I could tell if
it reserves those address ranges for anything. Of if it has
optional gameport support. (Which would almost certainly
want the same I/O space as the SoundBlaster. (My mobo
has no joystick connector, but the chipset could still allow
one if the board designer so desired.)

> maybe see if you can find the ALC version it is using and try...

How can I tell?

> ...using older drivers if you can.....

Now sure how I would use drivers. The original drivers don't
work anymore because the hardware seems (to the OS) to
have been disabled or physically removed. I suspect that the
part of the BIOS that recognizes an add-in soundcard and gets
the on-chip feature out of the way has somehow become
confused and is *always* disabling the on-chip stuff.

> remove CMOS battery and try again,

Did that (several times). Also *shorted* the empty battery
holder just in case some capacitor was keeping a charge.
However, the system never lost its MAC address for instance,
so obviously not everything in CMOS is being cleared.

> see if perhaps there are any Fans that might be shorting your board,

No fans. Since serious debugging began, I have had all non-
essential parts disconnected. (Huge heatsink, no fan is fine.)

> but the most logical of all explanations the NF3 has chipset's
> link from the NVIDIA collective must be broken

Agreed. But perhaps I can access its root-level command
structure and compel it to re-join? Where's Commander
Data when you need him most?

- jam

[Paradigm]

yeah man, you picked up on the collective [Eartha Kitt] ... yeah have been seeing a whole lot of TNG nowadays after my exam


the version of the ALC chip that your sound card might be using could be ID'd by Lavalys, or one of tose hardware querying software....so give those a shot

secondly could you try finding some old NForce Audio drivers for the NF3 range, i had an asus K8NE Deluxe NF3 250gb before my current A8nsli premium
i think i was able to use NFORCE's drivers on it???

third try and flash the last stable/ bios or one b4 it, and see what happens


PS excuse my typos and stuff, i am in sutralia nowadays, and typing away on a poorly made Dell Multimedia KB, on a 865GBF mobo, with a howling 3.00HT proc. with 512MB RAM on whihc most of the keyys stick or not depress properly,
i am sorry all these fixes seem vague and things you have prolly tried already

[TwL]

yeah, as above run Lavalys everest & hit us information of chipset or sound card you're using sure the chip ain't broken (or well never seen such happening).

-edit-

Well checked some info on network here's a bit more from your chipset.

Your System Specs: Here
Your Sound Card: "Realtek ALC 650 6 channel audio"



and this chipset is not supported by Vista by any means, but you can use Windows XP x86/x86 drivers at Vista from Here. That page to get audio working, but here is even better this still supports ALC650 chip styraight as Vista drivers at Here.

-edit2-

I suspect why your audio doesn't work is because tihs old sound cards came with hidden 'Enumerator' behind all drivers. So check that the enumerator is updated on your system correctly. > Device Manager up > there is 'view' option show hidden devices. > check the unknown & sound, audio devices sections..

Also another way to open Device manager to see if that Enumerator is simply offlined & unfunctional (also allows to be reactivated on some cases) with commands > Run.. > cmd > Write to black screen these lines: