Asus V1S - No sound from speakers problem

[Constantin]

Hi to all forum members,

I just wanted to share my experience of a problem with my V1S-B1 laptop and how I solved it by flashing BIOS back from 301 to 208. One day (3 month after original purchase) just out of the blue I disconnected the headphones from the headphones socket and found that this has not been detected by the system. In fact, Vista continued to think that the jack is pluged in, and as a result the speakers were muted! At the same time, I knew the speakers were alive and working as they played the bios sound at start up!!! This is the most bizare thing about this problem.

I then found out that this is a well-known problem with some Asus laptops, and even though rare, is well documented for G1s and G2s (and now V1s) mainly in Asus support forums. I would like to say that I have Vista Business 64x, 4GB of RAM, BIOS 301, latest updated audio drivers, but according to the forum posts this issue is OS independent (someone even tried installing Linux and still the problem was not resolved).

I tried everything possible - reinstalling all drivers (proper uninstall with PC clean of the old driver), format and clean install of Vista, recovery CD, everything, but nothing helped. Realtek Audio Manager still showed headphones connected to the system even when they were not! so that speakers continued to be muted, even though the sound worked through the headphones or external speakers.

ASUS support told me (and to all people with similar problem) that the issue is with the faulty motherboards. In fact, people RMA'ed their units with this problem and had the MBs replaced by Asus, only to find the same problem DEVELOP AGAIN IN 2-3 months! Needless to say I did not want to send my unit out to RMA for nothing.

I must say some people found a temporary solution by adjusting up and down the sound level, which unblocked the speakers until the next reboot, when they would be muted again. This never worked for me - so it clearly looked as a some sort of firmware issue (with internal i/O logic or something like this).

I FINALLY MANAGED TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM ENTIRELY BY ROLLING THE BIOS BACK FROM 301 to 208 version! I must say flashing down to 300 did not help. I used Asus flash utility in Bios to flash. After rolling back to 208, clean Vista install, new realtek drivers and full vista updates insalled - the speakers started to work back again! I am now able to use the headphones back and force again.

This is my first ASUS laptop, and even though I love V1s, I am really shocked by ASUS support, who not only did not spot and acknowledged this issue, they keep mislead people and loose money by accepting RMAs, swapping the MBs, while the issue is in their own conflicting Bioses! I am not going to upgrade the bios now until I know that this issue has been resolved.

I must also add that even after 3 months after purchase, BTOtech guys (Eddie) was available for his support comments and tried to solve this issue.

[BtoTech.com]

moved to problem reports section. thanks for following up

[jinharry]

I am having a similar problem when I undock my new ASUS V1sn-A1 with the latest BIOS(302) and sound drivers(V1.85).

I have external speakers connected to the docking station. If I undock with the speakers attached to the docking station the built-in speakers will not activate after undocking and I can only get sound out via the headphone jack. The Realtek HD control panel will not allow me to change the configuration.

If I disconnect the speakers from the dock station before I undock then the laptop speakers are enabled. I have reported this to ASUS and haven't seen a reply yet.

[BtoTech.com]

hey sorry i missed your reply here. the thread was not flagged as new. I ve heard similar complaints before. I am sure asus is aware of it.
Does the same thing happen with you do the same without the dock, right into the laptop or this is only an issue with the dock?

[jinharry]

The problem is only when you go from docked to undocked. I spoke with ASUS support in the U.S. and they said they would log it but I never received a confirmation e-mail...

[BtoTech.com]

ye you probably will not get an email from them. the only emails they send to customers are either automated or dealing with rma. you may want to call back. if you are the only one that reported they may just brush it under the rug

[BtoTech.com]

this also may be an issue with xp only. It is possible that it works fine in vista.

[Chieliatheoke]

Usually use SnagIt myself but the video capture utility shouldnt matter.

Could very well be a combination of Windows Vista and your sound card not being able to record output from the speakers. Not the first time Ive heard of it but Im definitely not sure how to go about fixing it. Pretty sure I heard it being a Realtek being the brand of issue though on-board crap audio.