Dell 9010 no sound

[BillyCarpenter]

A customer bought a Dell Optiplex 9010 used and it has no sound from the speakers or headphones. Upon checking the audio drivers, I found there were none. I figured this would be a simple fix after going to Dell's website and downloading all the missing drivers...there were a lot of missing drivers. I also did a firmware update. But there was still no sound. I checked all the wiring, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers. Made sure that the correct audio device was defaulted. Made sure that sound wasn't muted. Tested the speakers on another PC.

I'm thinking this is a board problem as the headphone jack is straight to the Main PWB.

Any ideas of things that I may have overlooked?

I wonder if I purchase an audio card if that would work?

Thanks in advance.

[slimslob]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

Possibly was removed either accidentally of as a result of malware. Years ago there was a social media post saying that if you saw a file in any folder that had the following icon to delete it. The file was actually part of the Realtek audio system and the social media was actually the malware. Back then the icon was black.

[rthonpm]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

To make sure all of the drivers are up to date install Dell Command Update. This is the best method for any business class Dell as it will pull everything for that specific service tag.

If there's still no audio check how the display is connected: HDMI and DisplayPort both carry audio and can sometimes try to redirect the audio output to the display.

There are also some Realtek drivers that had issues with newer versions of Windows 10 so it's possible this model has one of those.

Beyond that, it's an eleven year old machine. Offer an upgrade to at least an Optiplex 7060 and give your customer a machine that's going to be useful beyond the EOL of Windows 10.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

To make sure all of the drivers are up to date install Dell Command Update. This is the best method for any business class Dell as it will pull everything for that specific service tag.

If there's still no audio check how the display is connected: HDMI and DisplayPort both carry audio and can sometimes try to redirect the audio output to the display.

There are also some Realtek drivers that had issues with newer versions of Windows 10 so it's possible this model has one of those.

Beyond that, it's an eleven year old machine. Offer an upgrade to at least an Optiplex 7060 and give your customer a machine that's going to be useful beyond the EOL of Windows 10.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

The customer bought the PC from Ebay and apparently they did a fresh install of windows 10 but failed to go to Dell Command Update. That's the first thing I did. It installed all the missing drivers and did a firmware update. But the only audio driver that shows up is called: 1080p prostream. There are no RealTek drivers.

From what I gather online, this has been a problem that arises from certain Windows Updates.

The PC's monitor is connected via HDMI. The speaker are plugged into the the speaker port in the rear of the PC.

Tomorrow I plan to download the RealTek drivers from their website and see if that works. What do you think?

[slimslob]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

The customer bought the PC from Ebay and apparently they did a fresh install of windows 10 but failed to go to Dell Command Update. That's the first thing I did. It installed all the missing drivers and did a firmware update. But the only audio driver that shows up is called: 1080p prostream. There are no RealTek drivers.

From what I gather online, this has been a problem that arises from certain Windows Updates.

The PC's monitor is connected via HDMI. The speaker are plugged into the the speaker port in the rear of the PC.

Tomorrow I plan to download the RealTek drivers from their website and see if that works. What do you think?

1080p prostream is for a Logitech webcam. Most likely only supports the speakers on the webcam. Do you have a webcam handy to try?

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

1080p prostream is for a Logitech webcam. Most likely only supports the speakers on the webcam. Do you have a webcam handy to try?

There's a logictek webcam installed on the customer's PC. I don't think there's any speakers on the cam, though.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

This is turning into a real chore. I have researched the shit out of this problem on the web and I still don't have it working. But I'm not giving up.

So, I got to looking at my own PC and noticed that it was using a driver other than realtek. I think it was a Windows 10 default driver from Intel. My PC is also a Dell. I went to Dell's website and installed the RealTek driver and it went smooth. Now I'm using the latest RealTek audio driver.


This morning I installed the latest RealTek drivers on the problem PC. After installing, it still isn't showing up. I enabled Hidden Drivers. I enabled Legacy drivers. Still wasn't there.


I did a little more research and one guy suggested going to the Program Folder and deleting the RelTech File and then reinstalling. I'll give that a shot and post the results either way.


Note - RealTek drivers aren't showing up in Control Panel or Device Manager.

[rthonpm]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

You've put more time into this than I likely would have.

1. Check for the presence of the onboard speaker and good connections to the board. Check if there's audio over HDMI or DP to a monitor with built-in speakers.
2. Dell Command Update, running it until no new drivers found.
3. Checking Device Manager for hidden devices and any error codes for any devices shown.
4. Run a dism to check the OS component store for corruption, fixing any found, then running an SFC.
5. F12 diagnostic boot to see if audio shows up there. If audio worked there, backup the data and re-install Windows.
6. Telling customer here's the cost for an Optiplex 7060 with better specs and better performance than this old machine. If they balk, then a quote for a decent Viewsonic monitor with built-in speakers and a DP connection.


Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

You've put more time into this than I likely would have.

1. Check for the presence of the onboard speaker and good connections to the board. Check if there's audio over HDMI or DP to a monitor with built-in speakers.
2. Dell Command Update, running it until no new drivers found.
3. Checking Device Manager for hidden devices and any error codes for any devices shown.
4. Run a dism to check the OS component store for corruption, fixing any found, then running an SFC.
5. F12 diagnostic boot to see if audio shows up there. If audio worked there, backup the data and re-install Windows.
6. Telling customer here's the cost for an Optiplex 7060 with better specs and better performance than this old machine. If they balk, then a quote for a decent Viewsonic monitor with built-in speakers and a DP connection.


Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Yeah, I've put more time in this than I probably should have. On the positive side, I have learned a lot about audio drivers and different related topics. This is my first time doing a deep dive on this.

I had to look up what "dism" is. Very interesting and that will be my next step. Thanks for your suggesting. If that doesn't work I'll do F12 diagnostic and proceed according to your instructions.

Really appreciate the help. Take care.

[slimslob]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

Have you gone to Control Panel - Sounds to see what shows as the Playback device? If it shows speakers or headset/headphone, highlight the device and click on properties. On the Levels tab check that the output is not set to 0. If you ever have audio problems setting a computer up for Zoom or other online meeting software the Levels tab can be quite useful.

[WIWA]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

A customer bought a used and it has no sound from the speakers or headphones. Upon checking the audio drivers, I found there were none. I figured this would be a simple fix after going to Dell's website and downloading all the missing drivers...there were a lot of missing drivers. I also did a firmware update. But there was still no sound. I checked all the wiring, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers. Made sure that the correct audio device was defaulted. Made sure that sound wasn't muted. Tested the speakers on another PC.

I'm thinking this is a board problem as the headphone jack is straight to the Main PWB.

Any ideas of things that I may have overlooked?

I wonder if I purchase an audio card if that would work?

Thanks in advance.

Well I,m a Dell lover , I have a Dell laptop E6410 one day using it with a music program and spend a lot of time hearing music at a volume at max then heard a distorted sound and puff check from program drivers , ETC. when use the jack still works , so probably your problem is on the amp. stage of you computer sound chip. You can get the main board on E-Bay or Peoplesparts ( sellonly dell parts) or disable the internal audio from bios and install a sound board you can buy from E-Bay Sound Blaster gold a good choice .

Hope this helps,

Wiwa 72 , Gonzos build V 1.0

[Tricky]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

Boot into a live Linux distro and try that.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

I've been busy with other things, so I haven't had time to troubleshoot the sound problem any further. There have been many good suggestions given on this thread but my plan is to follow rthonpm's suggestion. This is a strange problem in that when I install the correct audio drivers, they simply don't show up. Most of rthonpm's suggestions have to do with Window's 10 being corrupt. That makes sense to me.

The other thing that I wonder about and this could be totally off-base, is if the motherboard is bad, would that cause the drivers not to show up? That doesn't make too much sense to me but I don't know because I've never encountered this problem before.

If it is a motherboard problem, I will not be replacing it. This PC isn't worth it.

I have so much time in this PC that I can't even charge the customers for the hours that I've spent on it. I'm just doing this because I don't like to give up and it's the only way to learn.

I'm going to try to get back on it today. Hopefully.

[slimslob]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

I've been busy with other things, so I haven't had time to troubleshoot the sound problem any further. There have been many good suggestions given on this thread but my plan is to follow rthonpm's suggestion. This is a strange problem in that when I install the correct audio drivers, they simply don't show up. Most of rthonpm's suggestions have to do with Window's 10 being corrupt. That makes sense to me.

The other thing that I wonder about and this could be totally off-base, is if the motherboard is bad, would that cause the drivers not to show up? That doesn't make too much sense to me but I don't know because I've never encountered this problem before.

If it is a motherboard problem, I will not be replacing it. This PC isn't worth it.

I have so much time in this PC that I can't even charge the customers for the hours that I've spent on it. I'm just doing this because I don't like to give up and it's the only way to learn.

I'm going to try to get back on it today. Hopefully.

All it takes is for any portion of the Logitech chip set to fail and the OS core will not recognize it. If it can't recognize it, it won't load the drivers.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Dell 9010 no sound

All it takes is for any portion of the Logitech chip set to fail and the OS core will not recognize it. If it can't recognize it, it won't load the drivers.

I wondered if that may be the case but wasn't able to find anything on it. That would explain a lot. Thanks, slim.