For some reason my front panel audio jacks are not working today. I opened the case to make sure everything is plugged in the way it should be and there did not appear to be any problems there. When I plug the headphones in, normally a couple of Realtek screens pop up telling me that I have just plugged something into a jack. That not only is not happening, but I can't seem to find a Realtek icon anywhere. I opened the device manager, and it says Realtek is enabled and that the drivers are the most up to date ones.
When I plug in the phones, there is no sound coming from them and the speakers don't mute.
I'm running Windows 7 RC, and my two month old system has until now been very stable.
Try re-installing the audio drivers for your MB. I did some windows updates on my system, and lost all sound. Had to reinstall all of the Realtek drivers from the MB CD.
I just did that. Now I do have Realtek in my system tray, however, the front jacks still do not work. Realtek does not even seem to recognize it when I plug in a jack.
I wonder if there's something physically with the hardware? It's an Antec NSK6580B case. The usb ports right below the audio jacks work fine.
I was having intermittent problems about a month ago where Realtek kept popping up saying it had sensed that I had plugged something into a jack even though I hadn't touched anything.
Well, I fixed it somehow. Went in the case and unplugged and re-plugged everything. I don't know why my Realtek disappeared, but once I got it back that still didn't fix it. I think maybe something was loose inside.
In the process I discovered that I had never plugged in the connector for the power button led for my case.