HP Elite 8300 SFF Sound Not Working

[Schuld66]

I recently purchased a refurbished HP Elite 8300 SFF with Windows 10 64 bit. After setting it up, everything worked except for audio. It has Realtek onboard audio (High Definition), and everything looked good in Device Manager (two entries), but Windows showed the red "X" next to the speaker in the lower right system tray. When I try to open it up, it tells me there is no output device available. I tried multiple drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled, but same thing each time. I finally gave up on the onboard audio and bought a Sound Blaster Audigy Fx PCIe card. I disabled the onboard audio in the BIOS and installed the sound card. I downloaded the most recent Windows 10 drivers from Creative Labs and again, it looked good in device manager, but also, again, I got the exact same problem -- red X and no output device available. I have tried plugging and unplugging speakers and headphones into the jack, but no luck. I did get Windows to tell me I connected headphones into the front jack when I was trying the onboard audio, but nothing with the card. I am a Computer Science teacher with a degree in Computer Science. I worked as an IT tech for 14 years and have repaired computers, built computers, and have done a ton of troubleshooting -- this one has me stumped and it is VERY frustrating!

I even contacted Creative Labs tech support and they could not solve it -- they are going to "get back to me through email" -- I'm not holding my breath...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

That definitely is a puzzling issue.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to remove the audio card, and clear the CMOS.

See the troubleshooting guide at the link below, Appendix B, pp 63-64 for how to clear the CMOS.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01516072

[Schuld66]

I reset the CMOS, but still have the same issue.

I'm pretty sure these wouldn't affect the audio, but I added a couple of things to the PC after setting it up, and I can't remember if the audio worked before that. I upped the RAM from 8 GB to 12 GB, and added a secondary SATA hard drive -- one with my files from my old PC that died.

I'm really at a loss.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Sorry that clearing the CMOS didn't work.

I agree that adding memory or a second HDD would not cause the sound to not work.

I have the one model older 8200 Elite CMT (Intel 2nd gen core processor) with the Realtek HD audio and it is running the latest version of W10 Pro.

The internal PC speaker is enabled in the BIOS, but I have a set of external speakers plugged into the rear light green audio out jack and they work fine.  PC speakers set as the default in the Windows control panel.

The only other thing I can think of that you can try with the onboard sound would be to install the latest W10 driver directly from Reatek.

Accept the agreement,  Download and install the Windows 64 bit driver and restart the PC.

https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/pc-audio-codecs-high-definition-audio-codecs-softw...

[Schuld66]

No luck.

[Schuld66]

I bought a USB external sound card and had the same problem -- showing just fine in Device Manager, but no output devices found in Windows. I decided to do a Windows 10 reset and that did it. After the reset (about 45 minutes later), the USB output device was seen by Windows 10 and I had sound.