[mamessner]

After reading these forums and reviews on NewEgg, I just purchased my first dedicated sound card - the Chaintech AV-710.

The front panel connection seems to be working fine and the sound is clear and loud from my headphones (plugged into the front panel of my Antec case).

I plugged my computer speakers into the green port on the card itself, though, and the sound is so quiet as to be almost inaudible. There is some sound, but I have to turn up the volume in Windows (Vista Ultimate, BTW) and iTunes to the max just to hear anything at all. The sound does respond correctly to the volume slider (changes relatively from completely silent to just "quiet"). Plugging my headphones into the green audio jack yields no sound at all.

I'm using the Envy24 5.20a drivers from viaarena. The Vista speaker control shows moving green bars when music is playing, that go to the top when the volume is all the way up. Hardware manager shows no driver problems.

I know that this card doesn't have a preamp, but I'm almost positive my speakers are powered - they are plenty loud when I use onboard audio and they plug in to an outlet.

I disabled the onboard audio in BIOS (I think, it's a bit confusing) and uninstalled my old onboard sound drivers. I've seen some mentions in reviews of turning some sampling rate to 192KHz, but I can't figure out how to do that or if it's important.

Can anyone help? I'm trying to gain an appreciation for better sound quality and it's been a PITA so far...

 

[Ahriman4891]

Are you using the "regular" mode or the high-def output? If the latter, you need to plug speakers in the black port on the card, the one next to optical if I recall correctly.

 

[MrKazador]

Edit: Post deleted.

 

[mamessner]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahriman4891 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are you using the "regular" mode or the high-def output? If the latter, you need to plug speakers in the black port on the card, the one next to optical if I recall correctly.

I'm not really sure. How do I check this? Just the regular mode is fine - I'm just using some crap speakers until fall (I'm in temp housing doing an internship for the summer).

I've tried all the outputs, though, and no sound comes through.

 

[allioxyzzy]

I just had this problem

 

[mamessner]

Quote:

Originally Posted by allioxyzzy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just had this problem

Your problem seems so similar, and yet moving the jumpers doesn't seem to do anything AT ALL. I would think that it would disable or enable the sound if I had them set up incorrectly/correctly, but moving them doesn't seem to affect the problem one bit.

Am I doing it correctly? If the CD and AUX in are facing up, the top jumpers (Line/Speaker out) should be horizontal and the bottom jumpers (Normal/switch center, Bass) should be vertical, right? I did notice that the bottom jumpers were set to switch bass and center channel, and I hoped that putting those to the default would fix the problem, but no dice. Do I have to disable/enable the card or reinstall drivers to enact the change?

 

[mamessner]

Woo hoo! I got it to work in S/PDIF out mode. Still not sure what's wrong with 2-channel mode, but I'm just happy it works. I don't understand this stuff at all... Sounds good, though.

 

[mamessner]

Is there any way to get it so when I plug in headphones it automatically turns off the speakers?

 

[sugarinthegourd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamessner /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there any way to get it so when I plug in headphones it automatically turns off the speakers?

Mine does this...don't think I did anything special. Might have to do with settings of JP3/JP4? Or maybe it's to do with my front panel jack or cable.

 

[uraflit]

not sure what it is, but going optical oput from the av710 into my emu 0404usb to a receiver and bookshelf speakers, the Left and Right channels are reversed =0

 

[n00bler]

Did you adjust both the main, and speaker volume sliders in windows volume mixer (or control panel - sound - playback device - envy24 - properties - levels)

 

[infinitesymphony]

This sounds like a driver issue... Until n00bler mentioned that the 5.20b drivers were working, most people couldn't easily get the AV-710 to work with Vista. Try going into the Audio Dock (in the taskbar) and changing the sampling rate to 192 kHz. You'll also need to enable 2CH Hi-Sample Rate and plug into the black Back Surr. jack on the card.

If you're plugging into the green output, you're missing the whole point of purchasing the AV-710--its Wolfson DAC, which only outputs to the black Back Surr. jack.