Problem with sound/motherboard on i9400, any suggestions appreciated.

Hi!

I've been reading this forum for a long long time, but never posted anything as you have people who know more than me about the Dells, and I really never had any issues with mine.
Anyway, thank you for the advice, hints and tips i have been getting from you all!

On to my problem:

I lost my sound.
-No sound in my speakers, and no sound in the 3,5mm out line.
-The in line works, and so does sound through USB-connected speakers.
-The post in BIOS where it's supposed to say: Onboard Devices -> Integrated Audio (on/off) is gone
-The Sigmatel Card is still listed in hardware

I tried to fix it myself by:
-Mucking about for 4 days
-reinstalling all drivers
-formatting my HDD and reinstalling windows and all drivers
-Upgrading my BIOS

After mailing back and forth with Dell Tech Support, they tell me it's most likely my motherboard, and I have to send them the PC to replace it.
Of course, I don't want to send it to them if I don't have to, so this is me asking you if you have any kind of advice as to what I can try on my own.

And if it all comes down to replacing my motherboard, can I do it myself? Are there any soldering involved? Any particular thing that's extremely hard to do for a layman?
I consider myself to be over average in terms of technical compentence btw.
Of course, Dell's warranty is off if I do it myself, but I am willing to accept that.

Any kind of help appreciated.

Regards

-Ape-

 

Don't do it... if you're 100% sure it's the motherboard, let the professionals handle it. I'm not sure how much soldering you've done in your life, but when you're dealing with precision circuit boards, there's no room for error.

 

if you have to ask if you can do it yourself, that means no, you cant do it yourself, thats a big job thats easy to foul up, send it in or try and get a tech sent, how long have you had it? you might just be able to do an exchange

 

I'm sure this is probably one of the first things you checked, but just in case... This would explain why some audio is working and others are not. I really hope it's this easy!

 

Thanks for your replies guys.

So there IS soldering involved? I frequently work on wristwatches, and have dug my way around inside a couple of desktops. So I figured a laptop motherboard can't be THAT hard, but ok, Iceman0124, point taken.

I wish it was that easy, Mikeoo17, but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

I forgot to mention in my first post that Dell Diagnostics returned an error code for sound: 1B63:111B ..The Dell technician I was in contact with interestingly said: "I Don't know what that means.."

The fact that I lost sound while playing a high resource game, and I had the old BIOS version (less fan running) could indicate a lot of heat with a fried MB circuit as a result.. ..am I totally off?

My warranty expires in february, I've had the laptop for 11 months.

 

Return it now... if there's anything else wrong with it, get them to fix that as well. Once that warranty period is over, you're on your own.

 

Well.. the first time I had this problem, I sent it to service and had it fixed.. And then the new motherboard died again 6 months after..

This time there was no warranty, so I decided to buy a new laptop (also a Dell), and try to fix the dead one for fun.
Dell wanted close to $1000 to do it, so I got a system board off ebay at around $200 and, despite people warning me, changed it myself, and it WORKS! (This I am very proud of right now)
There was no soldering involved, just a matter of snapping out connections and moving components over to the new board.

 

Yes, replacing the motherboard doesn’t involve any soldering, and if you are careful enough it should be ok.

Posters above warned because you were going to take an unnecessary risk (when you already had warranty). Anyways, glad things worked out for you.