Onboard Sound Cards not working - Any ideas? \ VOGONS

Onboard Sound Cards not working - Any ideas?

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First post, by peter_shaw

Posted on 2025-10-06, 09:50

peter_shaw Offline

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I have 3 boards with onboard sound, where the output is silent. Any pointers / usual suspects?

Siemens Nixdorf System Board D981
Audio chip: Crystal CS4236B-JQ
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/siemen … oard-d981-a-b-e
Symptoms:
Driver installs fine, no output, no input (tested with audio recorder), Audio output is noisy when cranked up all the way.

Elitegroup K7S5A
Audio chip: C-Media CMI9739A (AC97)
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-k7s5a
Symptoms:
Same as above

FIC AM39L
Audio chip: Realtek ALC650 (AC97)
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/fic-am39l
Symptoms:
VIA Driver installs fine, Mic Input works (tested using a microphone and windows audio recorder), Speaker output is silent. No clicks, no noise, just silence

Any pointers? I have a multimeter, but no clue what to test. Or maybe it's still a driver issue? I have used to provided drivers from The Retro Web and in device manager the device is shown as working

My humble vintage PC collection: https://www.peter-shaw.de/2023/10/vintage-pcs/

Reply 1 of 5, by swaaye

Posted on 2025-10-06, 15:26

swaaye Offline

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Have you looked at the manuals for the boards? Check all jumpers. And some boards have different behavior if you use the front panel connector.

Reply 2 of 5, by ott

Posted on 2025-10-06, 15:47

ott Offline

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Joined: 2025-02-01, 11:34

I'm not familiar with Nixdorf's board, but I've encountered a similar issue on AC'97 boards:

- Check the jumpers on front panel audio connector - they are removed when connecting the AC'97 front audio panel. Without jumpers there will be no sound on onboard jacks.

- or connect the AC'97 front audio panel. The sound should be on both onboard/front panel jacks, but some AC'97 codecs may mute onboard jack when connecting headphones to the front panel.

The attachment ac97-jumpers.jpg is no longer available

Btw, front panel may have a cleaner audio output. In my case, ASUS P4P800-VM onboard green jack are making weird static noise, but headphone output on the front panel works without any noise.

Reply 3 of 5, by StriderTR

Posted on 2025-10-06, 16:18

StriderTR Offline

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After checking to see if you have any jumper setting issues.

Check the BIOS, is applicable, and ensure the"Onboard Audio"(sometimes listed as On-Board) setting is enabled. It may be labeled differently depending on the board (like "Integrated Audio", "Onboard Audio Function", etc.), but you'll see it in there if you dig around. It's normally under the "Advanced" section and/or "Onboard Devices Configuration" or "Integrated Peripherals", or something similar.

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