n00b questions about audio for Asus P5Q Pro

[vaylie]

1. Does anyone know where to get the drivers for the Realtek HD onboard audio of the P5Q Pro for Windows XP? The driver CD is only for Vista, and I downloaded from the Realtek website version: RealtekHD_Audio_V51005628_V6015628. While I can get left & right stereo, I can't seem to get 5.1 surround sound working. Any idea what I'm missing?

2. I have the Rosewill R5601-BK case and it comes with front audio connectors like so:

This is apparently an AUX AUDIO connection, and not compatible with AC97. Does the P5Q Pro board support this type of audio connector at all? This is the only site that mentions support for Auxiliary audio in the P5Q Pro (something about CD Audio in), leading me to be hopeful that I can hook up the front audio ports to the motherboard, but I don't see it anywhere else and I can't seem to find it in the Asus manual.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[hesskia]

Are you using the SPDIF or Optical out? Using one or the other is about the only way to get a 5.1 output (unless you have individual 3port hookups for the 9mm minijacks)

Using the front ports like you are refereing too (not a digital output) won't get you 5.1.

 

[vaylie]

Thanks a lot for your help! The problem I'm currently having has to do with the drivers, I think. When I open up the device manager, I still see a "?" under Audio devices, even though I installed the RealTek drivers. I'm wondering if I installed the wrong drivers?

And I should clarify what I'm trying to do - I have my speakers hooked up to the back audio ports. However, I would also like my front audio ports to be hooked up so I can listen through headphones (no 5.1 required!). So I basically have two problems - my speakers work, but can't get surround sound on them. And I don't know where to connect my front audio to my motherboard so I can listen through headphones if I want. I'm a complete n00b, so I actually don't know where to put that dangling audio connection on my motherboard. D:

Is this even possible? Can I only have one set of audio output? Or is the audio connection not compatible with my P5Q pro motherboard?

 

[Proximon]

I found WinXP drivers on this page with no problem:

just scroll down.

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5Q%20PRO

 

[juvealert]

are you using XP sp3?

i had just build a pc (Asus M2N32-Sli) and in the device manager i got Two Sound Max HD Audio and when i installed the drivers one of them still remained in the list with the ?. So had to disable it. Although on a 2.0 speaker setup sound was comming trough the speakers

anyone has a similar prob?

 

[vaylie]

Thanks for the URL! I just checked the Asus website, and the RealtekHD_Audio_V51005628_V6015628.zip file for WinXP is the exact same driver file I used. But for some reason, I'm still getting the "?" mark. I am using WinXP SP3 though, so maybe I'm just having the same problem as juvealert.

This (pdf file) is the manual for my case. On page 12, they talk about the audio connection. It's a M/B AUXILIARY AUDIO connection. I read over the Asus manual again, and they only talk about a 10-1 pin AAFP front panel audio connector on page 59, which only works for HD audio of AC'97, neither of which is compatible with my Rosewill case, so I guess I'll have to give up my plans to connect the front audio to the motherboard. Booo. =(

 

[vaylie]

Update: I just went and checked the official AC'97 specifications since user reviews on newegg had mentioned people successfully connecting using AC'97 to the front panel.

Here is a comparison diagram of the pin-outs I made. As you can see, there are discrepancies between the AUD_GND and AUD_VCC/AUD_5V pinouts - which is not even mentioning the fact that the pinout diagram the P5q pro manual gives me is completely different (as seen here).

The Rosewill manual has an interesting line that says:

Remove the 5-6, 9-10 connecting jumpers from the audio pins on your M/B. Please note : the jumpers are removed ONLY when there is audio port on the M/B.

I can't help but think that all this is connected somehow and I should be able to get audio from the front panel jacks if I manage to configure the front audio connection as AC'97, but I'm very wary of continuing because the pinouts don't match exactly and I don't want to damage the motherboard.

Furthermore, if I configure the bios to use AC'97 as the Front Panel Type audio, will this also affect the output to my speakers? It is set to HD audio by default.

If anyone can offer any advice/insight, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Proximon]

You are giving Asian electronics manual translators far more credit than they deserve. Just plug it in. The "key" is there for a reason. It's a standard connection.

As to the extra device in your device manager, that could be a physical problem on the board, or something else.

One problem you can run into is that often MB drivers need to be installed first. Sometimes people do not know to do this and let the OS try to configure things by itself, and get around to installing chipset stuff last.

This creates a problem because without having the proper chipset driver, your operating system can't recognize the devices connected to the MB properly.

 

[raggyman]

If you install the driver as described above and restart.
Then you should have a new speaker icon next to the other one at the bar. Doubleclick the red speaker icon and you get the ASUS audio control window.

Click on the blue settings icon to the right at Frontpanel.
Chose 44.1 k Hz and No S/PDIF out.

Then you click ANALOG/Backpanel.
Hook "Deactivate registration of plug in front panel." '
And DON'T click the Play button. The test sound is too loud...



I don`t know if 5:1 is working, or even don`t know if rear plug is working. I only use the front plug, since no extra speakers at the moment...


*BUT* finally I got my quadcore with 4GB RAM!!!



And ASUS motherboard P5Q Pro ROCKS!
(Be aware that if you plan to do SLI/Crossfire, the 2nd PCI drops down to 8X so you will not get full effect of the 2nd video card with this motherboard. Chose another from ASUS, that gives ful 16X on both SLI/Crossfire cards.