BleepingComputer.com: Speakers connected to 3.5mm jack won't work

I just purchased a new 2.1 Genius speaker set for my PC. My PC is a Gateway GT5654 with Windows Vista. Until now I have always used USB speakers and they work with no problems but I wanted to try something just a bit better than the cheap 2.0 that came with the system. I hooked up the speakers according to the manufacturer instructions but when I connect them to the 3.5mm audio jack I cannot get any sound and control panel says "no audio device installed". I checked my bios and my HD audio is set to "Auto" (the only other option is "Disabled"). I have tried connecting to the audio jacks on the front and back.

I suspect that issue is likely with my Realtek audio drivers. I attempted to update / reinstall the Realtek Drivers but now every time I try to install the latest drivers I get an error message when the progress bar is 95% full. My old USB speakers still work but in the device manager the Sound Controller is listed as a generic "High Definition Audio Device".

The only other possibilities I can think of is that my 3.5mm audio jacks are faulty (although I have successfully gotten sound from headphones in the past, I recall it was a bit of a pain to get them working and I don't remember exactly what I did) or that my new speakers are DOA.

Update: I managed to solve the problem. It was the Realtek Drivers as I suspected. I ended up using DriveSweeper to completely remove the old Realtek drivers. Then I went into safe mode and reinstalled the drivers. Now my speakers work great.

This post has been edited by daveyd: 19 January 2012 - 06:17 PM

Glad you solved it, happy computing .

Louis