I ran this thread in the sound card forum as well as I am desparate to find the solution. I have a Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi/AP with 7.1 sound onboard. I also have a Lian Li V-1000 Plus case. Problem? While I am getting phenominal sound from the optical out to my z-5500s (not braggin', just, er, well, yeah, braggin') I can't get sound to my headphones on the front or rear panel connectors. Microphone connection doesn't appear to be working either, but the USB and FireWire connectors are working. Running Vista Home Premium. Is it a OS setting error? Bad cables? BIOS setting? Any and all ideas are welcome and encouraged!

Dufus

I would think driver , or setting in the program.

Update to latest BIOS and drivers from ASUS before doing anything.

I got the drivers updated, and am still trying to get the BIOS updated (I didn't build in a floppy drive and the Asus programs aren't working.) After the driver update, I was able to get the headphones working, but at the cost of the external speakers working. You see after selecting the headphones in the SoundMAX application BlackHawk, I had to re-boot before the headphones would work. It appears I must choose one or the other as a primary output. I should be able to have both available, right? I would understand pluggin in headphones and cutting the exterior speaker output, but that is not how it is working. Anyone else encounter this issue?

The P5K will BIOS update off a USBflash drive... plug flash drive in turn machine on enter bios then enter easybios util select usb drive and your away.
You should be able to utilise the digital SPDIF out as well as the 2.5mm jack at the same time as long as its selected to do so in the driver.
Im a bit of an audiophile and have an X-Fi that lets me to 2.5mm jack, digital out SDIF and headphones in front IO all at the same time. Im not sure if the onboard is this all round.

Removed all the Realtek drivers and installed a Creative Xtreme audio card and drivers. NO DAMN JOY Called Asus and got an Xtreme runaround. My qualifications, Senior Field Engineer for IT support at Lockheed Martin. 30 + years experience in the IT industry and a Bachelors degree in IT. Have scratchbuilt 4 computers for myself all with ASUS mobo's and until now have not had a problem. This has to be a mobo issue as I have hard drives loaded with Linux and Solaris 10 and Windows Vista. Same problem exists.