No Sound on my new Motherboard ?!?!?

[Cov(enant)]

I;m very happy with my new motherboard ASUS P5E-VM HDMI, but ...

... just one big problem: NO SOUND

yeah, I tried everything, de-install the sound drivers and install them again, checked BIOS, let windows advise, let google advise - no luck.

It says in device status: the device is working properly

And in Control Panel / Sound / Configure / Stereo - test = error Failed to play test tone!

When I go to Windows Media Player and try to playback a sound, it says:

Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem with your sound device. There might not be a sound device installed on your computer, it might be in use by another program, or it might not be functioning properly.

Having read all the suggestions from Windows help file first I started thinking that the motherboard might be faulty

Then have looked a bit closer at the device manager and changed to view / devices by connection and could see something remarkable:

The loudspeaker icon (REALTEK HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO) has a little exclamation mark !

And when I right-click it and scroll to properties, the following information comes up at device status:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)

Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available.

Of course there was none ...

My plan:

1) update BIOS,

2) change chipset driver,

3) download sound driver from manufacturer's website (instead from supplied CD),

4) if nothing helps I will de-install vista and try XP instead.

Will be reporting back as soon as I find any cause.

[Toxcity]

Sounds like the driver doesn't like Vista.

Are you using the Vista driver or the XP driver? An XP driver will be a little unstable on Vista.

[Cov(enant)]

Hello Toxcity ... yeah, it actually was the correct vista driver.

And here is how I solved my sound issue on this motherboard ...

Well, I was about to install XP over Vista, to see if that's any difference.

But before that - I decided to quickly install SP1 for Vista ... the process took a long time though (in 3 steps) ... and what can I say, GOOD LORD ... when it was finished, suddenly I got sound.

Now I need to find the cause for why Halo freezes everythime after one cycle of online gaming has finished.

Meaning: the new cycle should start automatically, but it doesn't ... I have to get out of Halo by going into the TASK MANAGER and exit Halo.

Switching off the firewall didn't help ... what might be the cause ???