Post-building Audio conflict?

[rustedmobo]

Hello all TH techs. I want to disclose that I am new at building right away and this is only my second system (first one was a $350 PC for my parents). Please see the parts list, which I hope no one criticizes too much. During the build I had a couple of problems, but most frustrations came after the rig was finalized. First I couldn't figure out how to enable the Intel Smart Response technology (separate short thread in RAID section), on which I gave up after a day, but now I am having problems with my audio - only in games.

Sporadically certain sounds are missing, but the background music is always fine. In some games, I was even able to isolate certain actions that have no sounds and certain ones that always do - Fallen Earth, only make footsteps sounds when strafing right or spinning in place. This makes me think that the problem is due to a conflict of different channels. I tried to research online, but most likely lack the technical expertise in this area to recognize valuable information.

I am assuming the only parts that could be in conflict are the motherboard audio and the video card audio. I didn't see any conflict in the Device manager, and my BIOS only has option to disable HD Audio, which takes away all sound from my regular PC use. What troubleshooting steps should I be taking?


System:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163181

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161404

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227757

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136247

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231558

Appreciate any advice in advance as always.

 

[smorizio]

Hello and welcome to the forums. for the intel rapid start if your going to be using an ssd. the ssd has to be blank. then you turn on the intel rapid chipset in the bios. when you turn the intel chipset on it ask you for a location on a blank ssd or hard drive to make the intel rapid partion. if the ssd has a partion is ask you to wipe it or you get an error message that it cant make a partion. the easy fix is to use hard drive tools from hirum boot cd and remove the partion on the ssd. for a new pc make sure your bios for your mb is up to date. the bios you get and the ones online most times your mb has older bios and missing cpu or ram code or bug fixes. after you update the bios make sure you download the newest intel chipset drivers. the ones in windows 7 are old. the same goes for the sound card drivers and network drivers and usb drivers. look at your mb vendor web page for the vendor that made those chipset and download the newest drivers from them. also make sure you have the newest video drivers and download directx from microsoft. (you want both 9 and 10 on your gaming pc some games are dir9 only games some are 10. some have been rewritten for 10 but you may need to patch them. I would check to see if your patch the game with the sound issue. or see if there a bug fix for that game.

 

[rustedmobo]

Thanks smorizio. I haven't used the Rapid Start technology yet, I am not sure how much value is in it, as it is for PC to wake up from sleep of hibernate faster and I never rly had any issues with that. The technology I was referring to is Smart Response, whereby SSD becomes a cache for the HDD. I've read a load of guide's and reviews and couldn't get it to work, but now I don't feel like wiping both of my drives, as I've just finished setting all the software up.

I've installed all the latest drivers from AsRock (my mobo manufacturer), but it is a good point about BIOS update and DirectX 9 and 10, althought these were auto-installed by some games. I will try to do both - my Internet Flash feature in the BIOS that is supposed to instantly update BIOS ran into a "connection error" for some reason, but I will do it through other means. I've read that it is not recommended to update BIOS unless there is a problem, so I was hesitant.

The sound issues are across different games (I've tried 3 so far, all from different time periods), and is really bringing me down from my otherwise decent building experience. I hope none of the hardware is faulty.

 

[smorizio]

for ssd cashing it better to have the ssd as the boot os...give the ssd longer live then as a cache drive.
for bios updates the easy way is download the flash file to a usb stick and boot into the bios. there a menu in the bios to read the usb stick and flash the bios that way. (that if the bios rev is real low.)
windows 7 has some parts of dirx 10 loaded when you install the os. but the newest version always on microsoft web page.
also the drivers on themb web page are going to be months old. go to the soundcard chipset vendor for the newest drivers.

 

[rustedmobo]

Best answer selected by rustedmobo.

 

[rustedmobo]

Thank you. Did all of the above and the problem was in something completely different - there was an audio device sub-menu set to surround sound instead of 2-channel speakers. So all of those channels were being lost. Shows how inept I am at this. Thanks again for all the help.