I just built a new PC with Windows XP professional. The Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l mobo has 5.1 onboard ALC888 audio. I have a new 5.1 Logitech X-540. I have the newest sound drivers (released February).

All speakers work when playing music from Windows Media Player 9, but there's no sound anywhere else (no Windows startup sound, no sound from Youtube, etc...). In addition, my sound control panel has so many things grayed out:



And also, the audio software forces my to use the 8 speaker configuration. Setting it to 6 (which is how many speakers I have) will make the speakers not play any sound whatsoever.



This image shows that only 2 speakers are detected, but under the advanced settings, I set it to 5.1.

Alright here is the downlow on this board. You have to uninstall the microsoft patch for the sound, uninstall the audio driver for the gigabyte board, then reinstall the gigabyte audio first, and then install the microsoft update for audio drivers. I had the same issue, but thankfully somone had already had the problem before me, so when it happened i was able to work around it quickly. This should remedy the problem your having, if your like me, you installed all your updated from microsoft first, and then installed the drivers afterwards, anywho hope this helps you clear up this problem.

There's like 100 Windows updates in add/remove program. It won't let me uninstall all of them at once. How do I know which one updated the audio? They don't have descriptive names. They only say "security update" or "hotfix".

You have to click the button in the add and remove programs that lets you see the updates you have installed, and then what your looking for is the microsoft realtekaudio update, if you cant get that to work for you, go over to the ms website and get the crazy number they use for it, thats the one you need to uninstall, like i said it was a while ago, and i dont use xp and more i went vista, so i cant dig into my updates and give you specifics, also try googling ga-p35-ds3l realtek audio problems, im sure youll find the specifics i cant seem to find there.

I was pretty certain I installed the old audio drivers from the motherboard CD right after Windows finished installing. There's no way Windows Update will run without me installing all the the drivers on the CD, because Windows Update requires the Internet driver.

Anyways, I will try again. I will have to download the newest audio drivers from here: http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Mo [...] uctID=2583 . There are two versions of my motherboard (rev 1.0 and rev 2.0). But I don't know which one mine is. I bought my mobo from here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] A-P35-DS3L . I went with 2.0 the first time around.

if you bought you mobo this year, then your good to go, it will be a 2.0 version. I was able to get online right after my xp install, but i guess it was a freak thing anywho... have you flashed the bios yet ? that in yet another thing you probably should do.

I made an important discovery! Sound works perfectly from the front headphone jack. The back jacks cannot play Youtube / Windows sounds. But, I cannot use the front jacks for my 5.1 surround sound, because it requires 3 plugs. How do I get the front's capabilities in the back?

Hmm, very interesting sounds like your problem is beyond my hands, if it was i, and its a new build with relatively nothing on it, i would do a reinstall, it sounds like some drivers, either gigabytes, or xp's didnt install correctly somewhere, sorry but that is about my best guess at this point, though you do have sound in the front, that works with plug in connectors, the rear should work after the drivers are installed, but seeing as how its not workin this is what i would do.

Hey Blacksci (or someone with an Antec 900 and a Ds3l board), I can't get my front panel mic to work. Won't get recognized.

When I look at the mobo pins and the antec module, it looks like pins 6 and 7 are not compatible. Is that accurate?

Any remedies?

Thanks!