B550 Aorus Elite v2-Audio chip not working/not being detected by Windows10

[Bleeding-Edge]

Hi all,
My first post, I fix PC's and laptops for a job, so no noob. I have a Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite V2 mother board here. I have just installed Windows on it, the audio device is ON in the BIOS, the BIOS is freshly updated to the most recent version and reset to defaults.
I cannot see it under audio device in device manager, I have tried much driver shenanigans. There is an Nvidia graphics card and it is listed as a HDMI HD audio device in Windows and I am sure if I had a HDMI monitor with speakers I would have sound.

I booted the PC from a Ubuntu Live USB stick, the try it out option. Ubuntu failed to "find" the audio chip, a Realtek ALC 1220 as well. I listed the hardware, Linux reports a Realtek ALC 1220 AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller, Capabilities: access denied kernal driver in use: snd_hda_intel

Humm what does that mean? Is it a hardware conflict in the motherboard that is stopping it working?

I have read that this is an issue with other people, not too common and it looks like the sound chip is just DEAD.....I don't know. It's strange.

This looks sort of like what I am after but if the hardware is not working or not being "seen" by Windows I am not sure that doing these fixes will help. I haven't tried them yet.
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/download-reinstall-realtek-hd-audio-manager-windows

I also might remove the video card and see if the on-board video works then see if the chip "turns on" and if Windows "finds" it, perhaps it is disabled when a graphics card using HDMI is installed.

Has anybody else had a issue like this with these boards?

 

[Caring1]

Did you also install the Realtek drivers from the Motherboard manufacturer?

 

[OneMoar]

Interesting if it doesn't show up in the device manager as a unknown device then the odds are not good
you can try toggling the onboard audio option in the bios
turn it off do a full shutdown
boot into windows
full shutdown
turn it back on
-repeat

while you are in there try disabling the global C state control option sometimes that resolves audio funk on amd
else its probly time to get a sound card or usb3 dac

 

[Mussels]

Realtek audio has generic drivers that "just work" in windows and linux, with the installable drivers really just adding a control panel for some of the optional features

The onboard audio should always be there, even if another GPU is detected - the only time it 'greys out' in windows is if you have nothing plugged into it
I assume you tested front and rear ports and checked the front audio cable is connected?

If its enabled in the BIOS but doesnt show in a clean unmodified windows install, then the board may just be faulty.

 

[Bleeding-Edge]

Did you also install the Realtek drivers from the Motherboard manufacturer?

Yes I think so, I used the ones from the Asus web site first. Many of the drivers just don't see any hardware and just terminate. One seemed to work but I still don't see it in device manager. However the device is detected when I use utility to scan for hardware, so it would seem something is going on..

Interesting if it doesn't show up in the device manager as a unknown device then the odds are not good
you can try toggling the onboard audio option in the bios
turn it off do a full shutdown
boot into windows
full shutdown
turn it back on
-repeat

while you are in there try disabling the global C state control option sometimes that resolves audio funk on amd
else its probly time to get a sound card or usb3 dac

I tried toggling on and off the on-board audio in the BIOS, no effect. Perhaps without a full shut down...and the C state thing sounds interesting, what's that?

Realtek audio has generic drivers that "just work" in windows and linux, with the installable drivers really just adding a control panel for some of the optional features

The onboard audio should always be there, even if another GPU is detected - the only time it 'greys out' in windows is if you have nothing plugged into it
I assume you tested front and rear ports and checked the front audio cable is connected?

If its enabled in the BIOS but doesnt show in a clean unmodified windows install, then the board may just be faulty.

I am thinking the board is faulty but hope springs eternal. I am looking at adding another sound card now and giving up on it....Its a strange problem.

So I have gone for a clean install of Windows again, straight away I ran the included installation CD/DVD and loaded up the chipset AM4 drives, reboot, then the audio drivers, reboot. Still the audio hardware is not presant/not detected BUT if I ran this little app, HWiNFO64.exe it scans the PC and reports what it finds and it does seem to "FIND" the audio device.....See the screen shot.

What on earth???? I have loaded up the software suite and all the other apps, checked for updates, nothing found and a few of the apps won't update either. I haven't tried to install anything else so far, not even any Windows updates. Under device manager it's just the Nvidia audio device.

 

[OneMoar]

the amd audio controller IS NOT the onboard audio chip
those are nearly always realtek based
if you don't see a Realtek vend id the chip is probly dead

 

[Bleeding-Edge]

This motherboard did have a good degree of CPU/socket abuse before I saw it...goodness know what the owner did to it, its had boards swapped out and the CPU was totally bonded to the cooler heat sink. The whole thing came when I took of the cooler!!!! If they had removed it from the first board it would have pulled out the socket for them too, looking at the first board I think there is damage to the socket pins as well. If they then tried to get it seated into the replacement board I am sure they would have failed to get it seated properly.

I found that they also had an issue with using two RAM sticks as well, I tried one, got it to boot, upgraded the BIOS, two sticks OK now and running on XMP.

Its a miracle it works at all really, the guy gave it to me and it was a dead dog, I coaxed it back to life.

Everything looks pretty much OK so far, its just the sound. I have a PCIe sound card here I could fit and be done with it. Good info on the AMD controller. It is a realtek chip

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

This makes me suspect a broken-off SMD component!

 

[Mussels]

This motherboard did have a good degree of CPU/socket abuse before I saw it...goodness know what the owner did to it, its had boards swapped out and the CPU was totally bonded to the cooler heat sink. The whole thing came when I took of the cooler!!!! If they had removed it from the first board it would have pulled out the socket for them too, looking at the first board I think there is damage to the socket pins as well. If they then tried to get it seated into the replacement board I am sure they would have failed to get it seated properly.

I found that they also had an issue with using two RAM sticks as well, I tried one, got it to boot, upgraded the BIOS, two sticks OK now and running on XMP.

Its a miracle it works at all really, the guy gave it to me and it was a dead dog, I coaxed it back to life.

Everything looks pretty much OK so far, its just the sound. I have a PCIe sound card here I could fit and be done with it. Good info on the AMD controller. It is a realtek chip

Thats normal for the stock heatsink, you need to heat it up and twist to remove
If you have damaged pins you need to straighten them, if they're snapped off there is a mod you can do to replace them (i wrote a guide about it, somewhere - my 2700x has three ghetto pins)


Do all PCI-E slots work, and other onboard devices?

 

[eidairaman1]

Clear CMOS by reading your motherboard manual.

Go into the uefi bios and make sure it is enabled, if you can't find HD audio or it's not detected by windows then the codec is dead and you will need to rma the motherboard or just get a dedicated sound card.