R4 SoundCard Problems

Happy New year to you all.

I am looking for suggestions and help because my R4 has started to have an sound issue. Sometimes when I turn it on I get an error message "No Audio Output Device Installed" and when this happens if I try and use the media control buttons for the volume then OSD also fails. Usually if I shut down and restart then it will start normally.

Are there known issues witht the sound blaster card and if so then what is the fix?

 

Yup there is an issue with the sound card disappearing in the R4. Alienware_Luis posted ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/702195-brand-new-m17x-r4-no-sound-card.html) that the current fix is to flash back to the A05 BIOS.

http://support.dell.com/support/top...g=en&l=en&s=gen&dgc=SM&cid=249387&lid=4378995

EDIT: Mr. Fox has a possible solution is his post here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m18x-r2-m17x-r4-audio-fix-2.html#post9009004

 

Hi radji,
yeah my bad. I posted before searching and then found the articles you mentioned and came back here to edit my original post. I will read through the posts. Thanks.

If a moderator wants to delete this thread please go ahead.

 

If none of the above works, please send me a PM and I'll take care of the issue for you.

 

Thanks Luis for the offer but I think I am too far out of the box to be helped By using Fn-F7 I can reliably get the sound to work so I can live with that.

 

OK. So my has computer worked for a couple of months and I would have to Fn-F7 fairly frequently to get my sound back after I restarted my computer but today I have probably Fn-F7 12 times with no luck. I have turned it off and removed all USB devices and restarted it but I still can't get any sound. So I decided to try and install A05 BIOS. I downloaded it and put it on a USB but when I try and install it I get an error message that says "It only supports to flash secure BIOS on current platform. The image to be updated is not a secure BIOS."

I was trying to go from A09 back to A05 and it might be just as well because I have just read a thread that said this might brick the computer? I would really like a permanent fix to this sound issue and previously I have tried the alternate drivers supplied by Mr Fox and while they worked better they still didn't fix the problem completely.

edit: Well the sound eventually worked last night but this morning it has failed again which is not a big deal right now because I am at work and I don't need sound. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

I got a M17xR4 with the same problems, ATI graphics. I've had this machine 3 days, after waiting on it to be built for almost 3 months. The most of the time after booting , I get the " no sound device found" in the notificaton tray. Tried uninstalling drivers, and reinstalling with no luck. Then one time I'll boot it and presto , the sound card shows up to the party. I called support today, and they flashed the BIOS to A11, well really re-flashed, since A11 was the original BIOS.
Well, after the flashed BIOS the sound card showed up, installed the Creative drivers and the sound worked fine. After shutting down the system, and restarting a few hours later...NO SOUND DEVICE !!!!

I tried the Fn-F7 switch and booted, the sound card was found, installed drivers and it's working fine...bet it won't last though. After all the money and time we have all spent to get these machines, you'd think by NOW that Dell would
have corrected this problem. I mean it's probably THE #1 problem on these machines...it's not like a sound card is bleeding edge technology.

Any help appreciated.

 

Hi all, just a message here to say that I've been experiencing the same problems as you and I just want to tell you that this was getting me nuts ! lol
But more seriously, only workaround that I found is to flash again the bios (so a05 for example), it's better if you use unlocked versions also... But well this issue stoped for me with a09 bios and earlier ones ! And it stopped also when they changed my motherboard who was bricked ><"
hope this helps

 

Howdy all,

I had the same problem from the first day I bought my laptop and that was when they first came out. Done all the bios updates to no avail. One day I came home from a lousy day at work and wanted to chill; play a game, kill zombies get my mind off of things. I turned the computer on and was hoping that it will have sound so I don’t have to restart it a zillion times. No such luck, no frigging soundcard. All of a sudden I had this rush of anger, I calmly closed the lid down and was ready to smash the laptop on the floor then put on my heavy hiking boots and stomp the hell out of it.. I mean come on; Dell can’t figure that issue out or maybe they simply DO NOT CARE.

At any rate I took a deep breath and after a couple of shots of Bourbon, I decided to end this idiotic problem once and for all. I held the power button down till the computer shut down, I am surprised I did not break the stupid button and watched TV the rest of the night.

The next day, instead of going to work I dove to Micro Center and bought a USB soundcard. The ASUS Xonar U3 USB Sound Card to be exact. It cost me about $45. It was worth it, for my sanity and my blood pressure. Not only that, but it runs circles around the cheap built-in Sound Blaster that you can’t even find drivers for at Creative web site.

The other option would be for all of us to brick our computers so maybe then the built-in soundcard might work. Oh if you decided to buy a USB soundcard you will need external speakers, so if you use your laptop on your lap or take it with you places, my solution will not work. I went away for a few days and took my laptop with me and was reminded of how irritating this issue is..

I mean this not a cheap laptop and it is not an isolated problem either. Come on Dell, do the right thing, figure it out.. It seems that their ultimate solution is to swap the motherboard.. Not only it is down time for us who only have one computer and for an issue that should have been resolved by now, not to mention that it is NOT a hardware issue. I asked Dell to include an option in the BIOS for enabling and disabling the soundcard. I think that will resolve the issue but hey my request fell on deaf ears.. Kinda like the Sound issue a good number of us are having.

Cheers

 

For Months on end i have had this problem, and it has become significantly worse since the A11 bios update. every time i restart, without fail my sound card wont work. I can find NO work around for this, it seems like pure luck.

I have tried EVERYTHING. Reflashing bios, re installing multiple sound drivers, starting with power connected, the removing battery trick, literally every tip that has been suggested, I have tried. None of them work.

Does anyone know how/if it's possible to downgrade the BIOS? this is what i'm resorting to now as this is becoming a daily issue taking up hours of my time.

Please Dell, Listen to your users, there's obviously a major software/hardware bug present, and you seem to be doing nothing about it! I think it's a disgrace we pay thousands of dollars for a partially functioning laptop.

 

Sorry to hear you all are having problems with the sound card. I have the R4 also and flashed to the A11 bios and have had no problems
with my sound card...

 

From what I gathered after a spending some time researching downgrading the BIOS, I am afraid it is not possible (There is a chance thought using the blind flash method, not recommended). I think in bios A08 they included some sort of a block the will not let you go to any earlier version.

Now I was so pissed off at one point, before I bought a USB soundcard, that I actually tried the blind flash method a bunch of times but it did not work. It is not recommended at all because there is a very good chance you will brick your laptop. At the time I did NOT CARE.. I even downloaded a modded bios where you have control to enable and disable pretty much all on-board cards but was not able to flash it because you have to go back to version A05 to be able to flash a modded bios. So there you have it, you / we are pretty much at the mercy of Dell until they figure out the problem. Now I am not a betting man but if I were I would bet that Dell will not do a thing about it.

Come to think of it, when I first got my laptop I think it was bios A02 (not sure maybe A04) and I did not have an issue with the sound card. So just like an expensive laptop owner I wanted to keep it up to date so I upgraded to A05 and from then on the sound card issue kept getting progressively worse with every bios update.

 

Ive had the same issue with every BIOS update. I have even had Dell send a tech out and replace the motherboard because of it. Sadly with the next update it did the same thing again. But when this happens now I know how to fix it. At least on my machine. I currently have my external speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse and cooler all plugged into it. To get my sound card back I just shut it down and completely unplug everything but the power cord.Once it is all unplugged, I turn the machine back on and presto, the sound card is back. I plug everything else back in and its all good until the next time there is a BIOS update.

 

Sounds like they have a bad batch of motherboards or sound blaster chips. luckily I haven't had the same problems but I'd be just as anger as you were if I had the same problem.

 

have you tried manually changing your soundcard in the sound and audio devices in windows to the SB, perhaps before you try this, uninstall (with a creative utility..or something) and re-install the sound card, and by manually selecting the SB card in the sound devices and making it default, might be the issue

 

I just had the same issue with sound card but that happened when windows update got installed. After trying everything else, I switched between igpu and 7970m and it got detected and running fine for last hour or so.

 

*bump* This issue really needs to be sorted. I think we need some recognition from Dell over this matter as it seems to be effecting a huge amount of users. My laptop is pretty much unusable without any sound.

 

We are working on this issue on a case by case basis. We recommend to update the BIOS and if that doesn't work then contact the local technical support team though phone to get it sorted out.

 

I am bumping this thread to raise attention to the issue, dell needs to take serious action to get this resolved. For crissakes, its a SOUND CARD. For the 15 laptops I've owned, zero ever had problems with soundcard...

 

I take my computer to work everyday and home every night and I still get this problem 75% of the time I turn my computer on. 50% of the time when I have the problem a simple Fn-F7 fixes the problem on the first or second attempt but occasionally it is so persistent that I turn the computer off and watch a movie instead. I am really annoyed that there does not seem to be a permanent fix for this. What I have found that seems to work 70% of the time when the problem is persistent is uninstall the DVD drive. I have no idea why this works or even if it is co-incidental or maybe it is just the computer gods have had enough of laughing at me and eventually take pity on me and allow me to have sound.

A fix would be nice.

 

Should we start something on the dell/alienware forum or ideastorm thing? I've had enough of having to do hard cycles to restore sound, and it doesn't even work all the time.

 

What is really weird with this is problem is on the weekend when I don't move my computer it usually starts OK. So I tried to remove the differences between home and work. At work I have a LAN cable plugged in while at home it is wireless and at home I have external speakers connected. So I tried disconnecting the LAN cable or the speakers before I turned off the computer and that actually worked for over a week but then the problem came back so I stopped doing it. What I didn't do was turn off my wireless.

I might try and disconnect my speakers and turn of my wireless before I turn off my computer at home and disconnect my LAN at work before I shut down there.

Is every one who has this problem having the same type of issue where the problem only manifests itself if the computer is moved to a different environment?

 

Nope. My laptop is at my bedside, and it never leaves there. The sound comes and goes arbitrarilty, usually between sleep cycles, but somtimes even during usage. It usually manifests while I use firefox, when the flash player plugin becomes "unresponsive", calling for either me waiting or terminating the plugin. It usually takes sound with it if I terminate.

 

This issue has so many different presentations from a headphone being plugged-unplugged to switching between gpus, and over a year of usage I have come to the conclusion no one at Dell has any clue on how to fix this, and if you call them their only support offer is "installing win8 as a dual boot causes the sound to malfunction please uninstall the operating system and get back to us" heck they even asked me to "replace the hdd (i have ssds in all drive bays) and restore OS to its factory state, and they will confirm via remote login if the situation persists" - Dell customer support for Australia

 

Dell has no answer to help us because its not a problem they can fix (without spending a huge amount of money), and they are no longer producing new boards for the m18xr2, m17xr4, or m14xr2, so they are just shuffling around refurb boards in response to sound card failure. We are SOL pretty much. Problem is probably an EEPROM low level programming bug in the sound chip relating to power management, which dell has no way of fixing without replacing ( a bios flash won't fix it). This problem is not unique to the Alienwares either, several other soundblaster cards on the desktop side have issues. Difference is, they can RMA their soundcards or buy new ones. We have to buy a whole other computer, as purchasing new boards are no longer an option.

 

Heh heh...I have to keep a copy of the sound drivers in my AW at all times to fix the sound issue

 

How can you fix your sound issue when it won't install drivers when the sound card has gone missing?

 

Well I am hoping that error never crops up, currently I face the "stuck in headphone mode no audio over the speakers" issue, and that fixes with the whole reinstall the driver issue

 

Well, bumping for hopes of more attention and maybe a solution.

 

Just wondering if you tried the solution Mr Fox posted here http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...here-m18x-r2-m17x-r4-audio-2.html#post9009004

that solution fixed all my problems, i've been windows 8.1 for over three months and i have not seen that problem even once.

 

I did try it, but on windows 7. I will never move to windows 8 on the alienware, the UI drives me nuts.

 

You and me both bro, but i have it as a redundant OS

 

It sucks that there is no other option but to live with this problem. No new boards to replace the broken ones with, and no recall to fix existing broken boards

 

I was having odd problems with my R4's audio back when I first got it. Sometimes the audio would suddenly get very loud and the windows volume control had no effect. Had to reboot to fix it. Eventually some point along the way it fixed itself. I believe the culprit was either the Intel or AMD video drivers (both of them also contain audio drivers). Make sure you've go the very latest Intel gfx drivers from their site, and the newest AMD 13.12 driver.

 

Yeah I noticed that myself, once I upgraded them both, I now have only one HD audio device in my device manager under system devices, I haven't been brave enough to plug in my headphones and have the sound card stick into "headphones only mode"