Ok, I think I found out now what was going on with my soundcard, and I'd appreciate if someone could give me some tips here. I've recently started torrenting, so I've let my computer on for days at times. I've never had any overheating problems in the past, so I didn't think this would be any problem. A few days ago, though, my soundcard simply stopped working while playing a game. After leaving the computer shut off for some hours it starts working again in the first 10-15 minutes the computer is on, then dies again. I think this means it is some kind of heating problem. The sondcard is onboard, and the motherboard is an A.i. A8N-SLI Deluxe, which is known for having a problem with a faulty fan. And indeed this one fan has been faulty almost ever since I built the computer, but it had never got me any trouble before. I also leave the side of my case open, because I always thought it helps a bit in cooling (the problem is, the computer gathers some dust inside, when leaving it like this). I have no extra fans installed, basically they're only 3: the one mounted on the processor chip, the one mounted on the GFX card and a very small one on the motherboard, which doesnt seem to be mounted on top of anything important (which is also the faulty one). So, does anybody else with an A8N-SLI Deluxe know a way to fix this fan? Because not only can it be the cause of my problem, it also makes a very annoying continuous noise. Is there any way to make my soundcard function properly again? Or is it lost forever? I've been told of a Headset that comes with a mounted soundcard on it. Does anybody use one of these, that could tell me if they're any good? And finally, any useful tips are also very welcome.
The sound device for the A8N-SLI Deluxe is located inside a processor called the 'chipset' on your board. It sits underneath that small fan that has stopped working. It sits on something very important. The chipset manages all componentinterfaces on your board, sound, USB, firewire, and CPU to device communication. Consequently, if that overheats, it's as bad as if your processor overheats, although the sound will be the first thing to stop working. Your sound device may start working again if you simply replace the cooler on the chipset with something like a Thermalright HR-05. Don't forget the thermal paste!
The sound card is in the northbridge, to my knowledge most motherboards use the chipset to process sound.
Really? I thought that motherboards with built in sound had different chips that processed sound. I just checked and it seems that from 2006 and on some manufacturers used non-codec real sound chips, and those are different from the northbridge.
Perhaps, I suspect those are the ones that have the 'real HD' audio controllers on them (hehe, the ones that are actually any good, so to speak), but the nforce 4 audio was quite good, and I'm pretty sure that was on the northbridge.
Ok, reviving my old thread a bit here... So, I bought a new fan for the chipset and that overheating problem should be solved. Now, the sound manager icon, and the soundboard tool are now displaying again in the lower-left-corner of the screen again, like they normally did before all this overheating mess. I tell the soundboard utility to detect the devices connected to it, and it manages to identify my headset, but it still doesn't play any sounds. Any suggestions? (Yeah, I checked all volumes, to see if none are set to mute.)
