My sound is not Working/being Found

I recently got my M17X r4 and when i opend it up brand new the audio was not detected, i have found a work around to this but i would like to know if there is a permanent way to fix this problem

 

What do you mean the audio was not detected? Could you be more specific or post pictures of whatever error message you're getting?

 

I had this and always had to re-detect it after starting windows. Dell failed to find a fix and even a complete re-install of windows did not help. Of course I tried all the 'home bake' posts about how to fix, even using generic MS drivers. When I got the R4 from dell (long long story) it has not happened again.

Oh, and yes a picture is a great help in identifying if it is the same issue

 

sorry for a late response, View image: Capture

 

That's the same as mine was. If you re-detect does it start working? If so, all I can say is try to get dell to fix - and a re-install of windows is probably going to be a waste of time, but I know they will ask you to so start backing up . They can instruct you in doing a factory restore so at least that bit won't be too painful!

Good Luck

 

i got my factory image and all my necessary drivers and im going to be swapping out my HDD for an SSD.

in other words theres one thing that works as a temporary fix for my sound issue, Basically remove the the battery and hold the power button for about 30 seconds, then boot the PC back up. but if the Audio is still not responding i just repeat the Process and usually it works

 

Yeah, I was sure it was some sort of hardware problem. Sounds like you know the drill, you don't even need to have your HD's in when sending it in...

Did you try re-detecting it or running the troubleshooter? That was a quick fix for me

Good Luck

 

troubleshooter is no good, im assuming there is somthing loose inside the laptop itself.

im a bit skittish with sending it for servicing because the last time i did that with my old alienware they gutted out the insides and left a few loose screws bouncing around on the inside (Props to you guys....) But in the end i had to get to work to free that screw that was left loose.

i think i would rather open it up myself than send it back to them, time to suck it up and Study this Beauty of a laptop some more.

 

Oh well at least it's usable. Can't you get them to come out? Always do for me, what country you in? In some you just can't get on-site service

They do also just send parts if you ask, done that as well for simple stuff like a video card or HD, but a MB should be available to send to you and it's not to bad to replace - lots of teardown video's available...

Good luck with it, let me know how it goes

 

We have been recommending the latest BIOS to fix the issue, if it remains after that we may need to replace the motherboard.

 

I live in California, after an hour and thirty minutes I had gone through the entire machine and no luck on fixing the Sound, im going to try what Alienware-L_Porras recommended before make any phone calls, it would be a cryin shame to send this back.

 

I cannot Belive this Worked... So I did some reading Online about the sound and there was this thread about slightly bumping the laptop (I didn't understand what he meant by Bumping) but all it took was a slight bump while the laptop is upright vertically. The sound has returned to me, im restarting my PC to make sure it stays that way

 

Woah! Takes me back to the old TV's when you gave them a bash on the side to get them to work! Hope it stays OK

 

I am on my second R4 after my first one developed some problems. I didn't even think of it until I saw your post but I used to get the sound card disappearing problem quite often on my first machine and the only way to get the sound back strangely enough was to switch from whichever GPU I had active to the other one, so from the 7970 to the integrated or vice versa. But since they replaced the computer I have never seen the problem again....I assume due to it being a different MB but not sure. I would keep an eye on it and have Dell replace your MB if it does not get better or go away, but def try to update the bios as L_Porras suggests.

I know when mine was acting up I tried everything I could think of, reinstalling windows and drivers. The funny part is that even if I uninstalled the sound card and reinstalled it, until I switched the GPU's around it would not come back, not even with a restart.