K7S5A onboard audio HELP!!!!

[saddness4]

Hi guys, sorry to bother all of you with this but i just built a new computer with Duron 950, K7S5A mobo, 256 DDR bla bla.
I"m using windows xp professonial. My problem here is i can't seem to get the onboard audio to work. I lost the CD that comes with the mobo with all the drivers so i went to the ECS main suport website and downloaded their driver for the onboard 97' audio. I did notice a special phrase that said i need to check what type of audio chipset i had. Yet all k7s5a has only the audio 97' chipset. I don't realy understand, could you guys please tell me what you think? it says right under the driver download link this:
p.s. Please kindly pay attentation on which kind of AC'97 codec chip on this board in case of you will have the manual installation. You can check the marking of chip which is close to the left side of PCI 2. To install incorrect audio driver could cause unexpected problem. Users are requested to have upon checking action before manual installation.

The driver was then only seprated by what type of OS you use so i manually installed it with the XP one.
I then manually installed it and XP now says it is functionally fine. Yet when i plug it into my (powered) speakers, there is no sound even when i turn it up full. I already checked every voulume button. I already heard about some of the problems such as needing powered speakers and low sound. I have powered speakers. Yet i think its the onboard audio thats broken because i plugged in a mic to test a recording and nothing records. Can anyone please help me get this onboard sound to work?

 

[Peter]

Oh well, the "AC97" legend again. Lemme explain.

AC97 is just the name of the digital bus that passes sound data from the sound _engine_ (where the sound computing happens) to the sound _codec_ (where the analog/digital conversion, volume control, and input/output switching happens).

So saying that the mainboard has "AC97" sound is meaningless blah. So is saying that AC97 automatically means CPU powered "soft" audio - the intelligence in the sound engine (or lack thereof) is not connected in any way to the way the codec is connected to it. To the doubting: Even Creative Audigy cards use AC97 codecs.

Back to the topic, you need a driver that supports both the engine and the codec.

What you actually have there is the SiS chipset integrated SiS 7012 sound engine, and either some standard stereo codec, or one of the newer 4-channel codecs (Realtec ALC 210 or C-Media 9738, can't remember). For the latter ones, you need a different driver that makes the SiS sound engine produce 4-channel data.

regards, Peter

 

[osage]

is the onboard audio enabled in the bios setup ??? under features I think.

may want to check HERE as well . read what is on the sound chip on the mobo, download the correct driver, install it.