New sound card, Please Help!

I recently brought in my computer to be fixed due to an accident that caused me to pull/break the front USB connections. I also had them fix my back microphone jack that has always been staticy. Today I brought it back from the shop and everything works great, except one thing, I have no sound... The technician could not figure out the problem, so the only solution to fixing the mic issue was a seperate sound card and him installing Creative Labs Live 5.1. Now I have never had a seperate sound card before and don't know what to do with the extra plug in the back for it. I have tried plugging in my speakers to the right colors and they are not found, then I plug in my USB headset which is located, installed, and ready, yet I cannot choose anything for audio. So when I look at audio and sounds under My Computer it's all grey'd out saying there's no audio, can anyone figure out why this is going on?

First, I would take a look at the bios and make sure that all onboard audio options are off. Then, check in the Control panel/system/hardware/device manager list for any audio drivers and make sure the old drivers (for the onboard) were uninstalled/removed. If not, do that.
Then, do you have the install disks for the new card? If so, uninstall the drivers for the 5.1 and restart, see if windows picks up the new card and asks for drivers. Install them and try it again, if still no luck, check Creatives site for updated drivers and go through the process again.
Hopefully it's just the top paragraph. Let us know if it works.

well, I went into the BIOS, and found that the creative sound was disabled... so I enabled it... booted up and a bunch of hardware pieces were found upon startup. One was SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC, but it could not install it's driver properly... even with this enabled I'm still left grey in the options area... the technician even said he tested it to make sure it worked... is there a special plug that goes into the Sound Card slot because all I have is the one for my video card so I'm extremely confused. Also should I go back into the bios and disable this again?

Yes! That option is for the onboard sound. You will then have to go and remove the stuff windows picked up. (Sorry) HMMM ... this is a poser. On the back of the comp, there should be a new card prob down towards the bottom with like 4 or 5 1/8 inch plugs, and maybe a funny looking 1439 plug (shaped like a house on its side) or a female plug for a joystick, is that right?

Yup that's correct... but I don't have a plug for it because I have my old video card plug and my new nvidia 7800 plug which is much different... but yes it is right at the bottom, yellow, and it's a 15 prong plug

Ok, yah, that plug is for a joystick or game pad. Well, I just searched the creative site and found your card.
I think your best bet right now would be to search out any sound drivers on your computer and uninstall/remove them. Then restart and see what happens. I'm sure it will find something, should be Creative ....., then ask for a cd. Install and try it out. (keep an eye on what it asks you to install and write it down for us. Also, find in your documentation what each plug is for and if you have a set of headphones for a walkman or something, plug them in to the headphone jack and see if they get sound.)

It looks as if the tech uninstalled all the old drivers and I just updated the drivers and installed a patch for the creative labs. However it's still not working like it should, I plugged in my regular speakers and nothing is heard from them... so if I try and play a song or mp3 an audio error message will pop up telling me there's no audio device in use. I can't really understand where I would need to go next since I was never given the CD's, but I will make sure to take it back in tomorrow.. hopefully there's something I just missed

... thanks for the help though Em

OK, lets try one more thing. (this is bugging me now, don't like people in computer distress)
go into your control panel and then hit sounds and audio devices.
go to the audio tab, is there a default device listed? if not, does the drop down give you an option? Also, go to the hardware tab and see what it says you have for stuff. if you can, take a screen shot of it. (have it on screen, then hit ctrl-printscreen, then open paint and just paste, save as jpg and attach to your message.)

Nope, no drop down menues, just all grey saying "no playback devices" or "no recording devices." Here are the screenshots from the hardware tab

Well, it looks like it knows it's there, just doesn't know what to do with it. Hopefully the tech you bring it to will get it going for you brother! If you still have issue, let us know.

So, the original sound card is the onboard sound on the motherboard? If so, I'm surprised it doesn't work after disabling the original sound card in the BIOS. Do you know what they did when they fixed the USB and MIC ports? I wonder if they damaged something when they did this. The other thing I'm confused about is when you did disable the original sound card in the BIOS and the hardware was found, did you have Windows install the drivers? With most hardware, you have to cancel all this and install the drivers with the CD's/disks that come with the hardware. One thing you can try and is erasing all the drivers for your new sound card and reinstall them.

I brought it back today and the tech was kind of confused, he checked it out again and sure enough it didn't work. He said he would look at it and fix the problem, but he wasn't sure how it went from working to not when I brought it home. So I may be off DC for a little longer than planned... but thanks for your help, I was able to explain to him exactly what I did which I think may have helped in where not to look... I hope... anyway hopefully it'll be an easy fix! I'll make sure to post what happened when I get it back.

I have not weighed in on this because the advice you are getting is good, that and at best I am just a tinkerer when it comes to computers.

If you have an older computer, which I assume that you don't, but if you do: there may be a jumper on the mother board that you have to change as well as the bios to disable the on-board card.

emetakleze wrote:

Ok, yah, that plug is for a joystick or game pad. Well, I just searched the creative site and found your card.
I think your best bet right now would be to search out any sound drivers on your computer and uninstall/remove them. Then restart and see what happens.

Chameleon wrote:

did you have Windows install the drivers? With most hardware, you have to cancel all this and install the drivers with the CD's/disks that come with the hardware. One thing you can try and is erasing all the drivers for your new sound card and reinstall them.

You were spot on Em and Cham, just got it back within a half hour. Everthing's fixed and without a cost for anything even the sound card! Anyway the guy said that when I turned it on windows may have installed a driver for the new card that wasn't compatible or something because I explained that it didn't work from the start, so the problem was with a driver. He just rolled it back and everything's great... maybe if I was just slightly more computer savy and less exhausted I may have figured it out from the tips, but good call on that. Looks like I will be playing after all, Thanks again!

Excellent my brother! Glad your up and running!