Problem with Audio now

I have taken another look at this GD Problem I am having.

You remember that it all started when I discovered that the DVD drive
in the MSI W7 PC no longer worked. When I disconnected the power and
data cables from that drive, the machine promptly stopped showing any
raster on the monitor - even though the PC seemed to be powered on.
I have a MSI FM2-A85XA-G43 with W7.

Out of the blue, it suddenly did not show any raster on its monitor.
I first pulled all cables from all drives except the basic C drive
holding my W7. Wonder of wonders, the monitor fired right up! Aha I
thought!

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

Except that now I see I have no audio! I use earphones, plugged into
'speaker out' on the rear. Always have. I uninstalled and
re-installed the Realtek audio driver package, to no avail. However,
I see in the Realtek audio display that it does not show anything
plugged into anything. I think if I remember correctly, it always
did! I think it always showed what was plugged into where. Am I
right? I do see that I hand-wrote on my MOBO manual 'use Realtek to
display audio connections'. So it should.

My Device manager shows no driver problems.

Now I am stuck. Any ideas? I am begging assistance. Before I go
mad. If I can just get my audio back, I can ignore the phantom P
drive.

JW

On Mon, 18 May 2015 19:34:36 -0400, wrote:

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

The second ("P:") drive sounds like a virtual drive. Do you have software
installed that creates a virtual CD/DVD drive? Poke around in Disk
management and see which driver is being used for P:.

Except that now I see I have no audio!

When you were messing around in there and disconnecting unused drives, did
you accidentally disconnect an additional cable? It could have been a small
cable with a header that plugs into your sound card or into the motherboard.


--

Char Jackson

On 5/18/2015 4:34 PM, wrote:
I have taken another look at this GD Problem I am having.

You remember that it all started when I discovered that the DVD drive
in the MSI W7 PC no longer worked. When I disconnected the power and
data cables from that drive, the machine promptly stopped showing any
raster on the monitor - even though the PC seemed to be powered on.
I have a MSI FM2-A85XA-G43 with W7.

Could it be that the boot order included the DVD before the HD and is
stuck waiting for a non-existent device? It should time out, but I've
seen boards that didn't time out or that took a VERY long time...far
longer than my attention span. I discovered that when I left it
apparently hung while I went for coffee.
When I came back, it had booted.

Out of the blue, it suddenly did not show any raster on its monitor.
I first pulled all cables from all drives except the basic C drive
holding my W7. Wonder of wonders, the monitor fired right up! Aha I
thought!

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

What did device manager think?

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

Except that now I see I have no audio! I use earphones, plugged into
'speaker out' on the rear. Always have. I uninstalled and
re-installed the Realtek audio driver package, to no avail. However,
I see in the Realtek audio display that it does not show anything
plugged into anything. I think if I remember correctly, it always
did! I think it always showed what was plugged into where. Am I
right? I do see that I hand-wrote on my MOBO manual 'use Realtek to
display audio connections'. So it should.

What happens when you use the control panel/sound configuration
to test sound paths and sounds? If you watch the display carefully
while you press the test play button, you can get an idea whether
the sound played or it just returned immediately. That can give you an idea
whether the problem is in the driver configuration or in the audio path.
Or bring up the music player and see if it thinks it is playing.

My Device manager shows no driver problems.

Now I am stuck. Any ideas? I am begging assistance. Before I go
mad. If I can just get my audio back, I can ignore the phantom P
drive.

JW

I have a phantom CD drive.

Turns out that it's the driver partition on a USB TV tuner.
Unplug the tuner and it goes away.
I'm finding more and more USB devices that require drivers or
proprietary apps have that stored on a partition in their internal flash
and presented as a CD.

And since the TV tuner has audio, there's more opportunity for it to
assume you wanted to hear it and automagically reconfigure your sound
to do that. That can happen with VOIP devices.

wrote:
I have taken another look at this GD Problem I am having.

You remember that it all started when I discovered that the DVD drive
in the MSI W7 PC no longer worked. When I disconnected the power and
data cables from that drive, the machine promptly stopped showing any
raster on the monitor - even though the PC seemed to be powered on.
I have a MSI FM2-A85XA-G43 with W7.

Out of the blue, it suddenly did not show any raster on its monitor.
I first pulled all cables from all drives except the basic C drive
holding my W7. Wonder of wonders, the monitor fired right up! Aha I
thought!

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

Except that now I see I have no audio! I use earphones, plugged into
'speaker out' on the rear. Always have. I uninstalled and
re-installed the Realtek audio driver package, to no avail. However,
I see in the Realtek audio display that it does not show anything
plugged into anything. I think if I remember correctly, it always
did! I think it always showed what was plugged into where. Am I
right? I do see that I hand-wrote on my MOBO manual 'use Realtek to
display audio connections'. So it should.

My Device manager shows no driver problems.

Now I am stuck. Any ideas? I am begging assistance. Before I go
mad. If I can just get my audio back, I can ignore the phantom P
drive.

JW

I agree with the answers you got.

1) Virtual CD software makes P drive.
2) Video card aux power cable may affect raster.
3) Many audio output options. RealTek can be redirected to
Digital (S'PDIF) or Analog (your regular output). Audio can
also be sent over video card HDMI (home theater feature).
Many possibilities to verify there.

You really should disable (1) if you can, because problems
may also show up when you go to burn a DVD. A virtual CD
drive can "hog" the drive commands, and the computer can
be practically locked up, as the burner software goes
nuts trying to make the virtual CD burn a disc :-)
It was pretty funny, the first time that happened to me.
I had to put $0.25 into the swear jar.

Paul

On Mon, 18 May 2015 21:32:24 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2015 19:34:36 -0400, wrote:

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

The second ("P:") drive sounds like a virtual drive. Do you have software
installed that creates a virtual CD/DVD drive? Poke around in Disk
management and see which driver is being used for P:.

Good idea. I looked at Disk Management - it shows only the hard drive
(C) and the now good DVD drive (D). Nothing else.


Except that now I see I have no audio!

When you were messing around in there and disconnecting unused drives, did
you accidentally disconnect an additional cable? It could have been a small
cable with a header that plugs into your sound card or into the motherboard.

Must be the case. I'll take a look.

Thanks

JW

On Mon, 18 May 2015 22:24:54 -0700, mike wrote:

On 5/18/2015 4:34 PM, wrote:
I have taken another look at this GD Problem I am having.

You remember that it all started when I discovered that the DVD drive
in the MSI W7 PC no longer worked. When I disconnected the power and
data cables from that drive, the machine promptly stopped showing any
raster on the monitor - even though the PC seemed to be powered on.
I have a MSI FM2-A85XA-G43 with W7.

Could it be that the boot order included the DVD before the HD and is
stuck waiting for a non-existent device? It should time out, but I've
seen boards that didn't time out or that took a VERY long time...far
longer than my attention span. I discovered that when I left it
apparently hung while I went for coffee.
When I came back, it had booted.

Out of the blue, it suddenly did not show any raster on its monitor.
I first pulled all cables from all drives except the basic C drive
holding my W7. Wonder of wonders, the monitor fired right up! Aha I
thought!

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

What did device manager think?

As I replied, I only see the now good DVD drive (D).
In Device Manager, I do see another entry though for
something called AMD High Definition Audio Device as well as Realtek
High Definition Audio under Sound Controllers. Under System Devices
I see two 'High definition audio controllers'. You don't
suppose.....

I am less worried about this now than I am that I now have no audio
whatsoever.

BTW, the new DVD drive works as if the disk is really playing (media
player). No audio though as I said. Yes mute is not on.

Thanks

JW

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

Except that now I see I have no audio! I use earphones, plugged into
'speaker out' on the rear. Always have. I uninstalled and
re-installed the Realtek audio driver package, to no avail. However,
I see in the Realtek audio display that it does not show anything
plugged into anything. I think if I remember correctly, it always
did! I think it always showed what was plugged into where. Am I
right? I do see that I hand-wrote on my MOBO manual 'use Realtek to
display audio connections'. So it should.

What happens when you use the control panel/sound configuration
to test sound paths and sounds? If you watch the display carefully
while you press the test play button, you can get an idea whether
the sound played or it just returned immediately. That can give you an idea
whether the problem is in the driver configuration or in the audio path.
Or bring up the music player and see if it thinks it is playing.

I haven't spotted any 'test' button on the audio display. Must be
there...

Thanks

JW



My Device manager shows no driver problems.

Now I am stuck. Any ideas? I am begging assistance. Before I go
mad. If I can just get my audio back, I can ignore the phantom P
drive.

JW

I have a phantom CD drive.

Turns out that it's the driver partition on a USB TV tuner.
Unplug the tuner and it goes away.
I'm finding more and more USB devices that require drivers or
proprietary apps have that stored on a partition in their internal flash
and presented as a CD.

And since the TV tuner has audio, there's more opportunity for it to
assume you wanted to hear it and automagically reconfigure your sound
to do that. That can happen with VOIP devices.

Hi Paul

Thanks

I will try to remove the P drive. Shud be a way.

Any ideas what happened to my audio? And why now the Realtek Audio
panel no longer reflects what is plugged into my rear audio ports? It
used to nicely. Must be a connection to why I have lost my audio
completely. You don't think that it is because now Realtek has my
audio set up as DIGITAL? I don't recall how that came out before. It
has been a few years since I assembled this mobo.

It do seem curious as to how the loss of audio occured seemingly when
I lost the DVD drive (now in the trash), and replaced it. I have no
audio at all - from disk or otherwise.

JW



On Tue, 19 May 2015 05:12:50 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I have taken another look at this GD Problem I am having.

You remember that it all started when I discovered that the DVD drive
in the MSI W7 PC no longer worked. When I disconnected the power and
data cables from that drive, the machine promptly stopped showing any
raster on the monitor - even though the PC seemed to be powered on.
I have a MSI FM2-A85XA-G43 with W7.

Out of the blue, it suddenly did not show any raster on its monitor.
I first pulled all cables from all drives except the basic C drive
holding my W7. Wonder of wonders, the monitor fired right up! Aha I
thought!

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

Except that now I see I have no audio! I use earphones, plugged into
'speaker out' on the rear. Always have. I uninstalled and
re-installed the Realtek audio driver package, to no avail. However,
I see in the Realtek audio display that it does not show anything
plugged into anything. I think if I remember correctly, it always
did! I think it always showed what was plugged into where. Am I
right? I do see that I hand-wrote on my MOBO manual 'use Realtek to
display audio connections'. So it should.

My Device manager shows no driver problems.

Now I am stuck. Any ideas? I am begging assistance. Before I go
mad. If I can just get my audio back, I can ignore the phantom P
drive.

JW

I agree with the answers you got.

1) Virtual CD software makes P drive.
2) Video card aux power cable may affect raster.
3) Many audio output options. RealTek can be redirected to
Digital (S'PDIF) or Analog (your regular output). Audio can
also be sent over video card HDMI (home theater feature).
Many possibilities to verify there.

You really should disable (1) if you can, because problems
may also show up when you go to burn a DVD. A virtual CD
drive can "hog" the drive commands, and the computer can
be practically locked up, as the burner software goes
nuts trying to make the virtual CD burn a disc :-)
It was pretty funny, the first time that happened to me.
I had to put $0.25 into the swear jar.

Paul

wrote:
Hi Paul

Thanks

I will try to remove the P drive. Shud be a way.

Any ideas what happened to my audio? And why now the Realtek Audio
panel no longer reflects what is plugged into my rear audio ports? It
used to nicely. Must be a connection to why I have lost my audio
completely. You don't think that it is because now Realtek has my
audio set up as DIGITAL? I don't recall how that came out before. It
has been a few years since I assembled this mobo.

It do seem curious as to how the loss of audio occured seemingly when
I lost the DVD drive (now in the trash), and replaced it. I have no
audio at all - from disk or otherwise.

JW

I have RealTek audio on the test machine, but the test machine
is doing memory test right now, and won't be available
for a while. I'll have a look later, and see if some
..exe under a Run key, when removed, stops sensing.

My current machine has SoundMax, so I can't use that
as a reference. Completely different software.

Paul

On Tue, 19 May 2015 09:38:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
Hi Paul

Thanks

I will try to remove the P drive. Shud be a way.

Any ideas what happened to my audio? And why now the Realtek Audio
panel no longer reflects what is plugged into my rear audio ports? It
used to nicely. Must be a connection to why I have lost my audio
completely. You don't think that it is because now Realtek has my
audio set up as DIGITAL? I don't recall how that came out before. It
has been a few years since I assembled this mobo.

It do seem curious as to how the loss of audio occured seemingly when
I lost the DVD drive (now in the trash), and replaced it. I have no
audio at all - from disk or otherwise.

JW

I have RealTek audio on the test machine, but the test machine
is doing memory test right now, and won't be available
for a while. I'll have a look later, and see if some
.exe under a Run key, when removed, stops sensing.

My current machine has SoundMax, so I can't use that
as a reference. Completely different software.

Paul

I have done a little research.

I have had this system for some two years now. I still have a
month-old copy of a smaller hard drive with same W7 and apps on it as
the current one. I connected it up, and booted. It showed THE SAME
phantom CD drive. I have to conclude that I just never noticed it
before. Could be I guess. Another Dementia symptom.

I looked at the Realtek Audio window from that drive, and it looks
the same. BUT STILL NO SOUND. I had sound of course in the past.
Sounds like a hardware problem that I somehow must have introduced
when I pulled all the drive wires and stuff yesterday. No idea what
right now. The audio ports of course are built onto the mobo.

I tried my earphones on my XP PC and they work, disproving the
unlikely possiblility that they went bad.

Gotta keep scratchin'
Thanks
JW

On Tue, 19 May 2015 05:15:11 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2015 21:32:24 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2015 19:34:36 -0400, wrote:

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

The second ("P:") drive sounds like a virtual drive. Do you have software
installed that creates a virtual CD/DVD drive? Poke around in Disk
management and see which driver is being used for P:.

Good idea. I looked at Disk Management - it shows only the hard drive
(C) and the now good DVD drive (D). Nothing else.

Just to confirm, you're saying the Windows Explorer shows a phantom P:
drive, but Disk Management does not show that same drive?


--

Char Jackson

On Tue, 19 May 2015 09:25:38 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 19 May 2015 05:15:11 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2015 21:32:24 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 18 May 2015 19:34:36 -0400, wrote:

Then I noticed that even though the only drive connected was said C
drive, Windows Explorer in the results clearly shows existence of a
DVD drive as P drive. Figure that! Of course there is no DVD, or any
other drive, connected. Then I looked at the BIOS boot to see what it
showed for drives, and it showed only the C drive, no DVD drive, as I
would expect.

I wired up another DVD drive I have, and tried things again. Now the
BIOS shows the new DVD drive (correct), but Windows Explorer in W7
shows two drives, one as drive D and the other as the famous drive P.
The new DVD drive D plays disks, and so I think it works. Drive P
remains non-functional.

The second ("P:") drive sounds like a virtual drive. Do you have software
installed that creates a virtual CD/DVD drive? Poke around in Disk
management and see which driver is being used for P:.

Good idea. I looked at Disk Management - it shows only the hard drive
(C) and the now good DVD drive (D). Nothing else.

Just to confirm, you're saying the Windows Explorer shows a phantom P:
drive, but Disk Management does not show that same drive?


That's correct. I just re-checked.

JW

wrote:
On Tue, 19 May 2015 09:38:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
Hi Paul

Thanks

I will try to remove the P drive. Shud be a way.

Any ideas what happened to my audio? And why now the Realtek Audio
panel no longer reflects what is plugged into my rear audio ports? It
used to nicely. Must be a connection to why I have lost my audio
completely. You don't think that it is because now Realtek has my
audio set up as DIGITAL? I don't recall how that came out before. It
has been a few years since I assembled this mobo.

It do seem curious as to how the loss of audio occured seemingly when
I lost the DVD drive (now in the trash), and replaced it. I have no
audio at all - from disk or otherwise.

JW
I have RealTek audio on the test machine, but the test machine
is doing memory test right now, and won't be available
for a while. I'll have a look later, and see if some
.exe under a Run key, when removed, stops sensing.

My current machine has SoundMax, so I can't use that
as a reference. Completely different software.

Paul

I have done a little research.

I have had this system for some two years now. I still have a
month-old copy of a smaller hard drive with same W7 and apps on it as
the current one. I connected it up, and booted. It showed THE SAME
phantom CD drive. I have to conclude that I just never noticed it
before. Could be I guess. Another Dementia symptom.

I looked at the Realtek Audio window from that drive, and it looks
the same. BUT STILL NO SOUND. I had sound of course in the past.
Sounds like a hardware problem that I somehow must have introduced
when I pulled all the drive wires and stuff yesterday. No idea what
right now. The audio ports of course are built onto the mobo.

I tried my earphones on my XP PC and they work, disproving the
unlikely possiblility that they went bad.

Gotta keep scratchin'
Thanks
JW


Using sysinterals.com Autoruns, I can see a Run key
for "rtlngui64.exe". My Windows 7 is x64, so the
file has that on the end. The text string showing
in the Autoruns dialog, of course, that string
doesn't match the file name. The entry is
labeled "RTHDVCPL".

That also creates a tray icon for the RealTek,
separate from the Windows volume control icon
down there.

Inside the RealTek control panel, is a "wrench" icon.
That's the icon I look for when it needs help.
In the "wrench" icon, there is a tick box
"Enable auto popup dialog, when device has been plugged in".
Mine is enabled right now.

The control panel was showing the speaker configuration.
I plugged in an electret microphone into the pink
colored jack, and instantly the control panel filled
to the microphone configuration dialog.

With the control panel closed, I repeated the test.
A smaller dialog, with an ugly looking microphone icon
and dialog, appeared near the Task Bar, when the
microphone was plugged in.

Locate the rtlngui64.exe. These are the details
from my x64 installation.

File used. Name has varies over the years. An
older driver might even use a different naming convention.

C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe

This is the entry that sysinternals.com Autoruns.exe program
could see. I was able to look at it in Regedit as well.
In Regedit, I had to search on "RTHDVCPL" to find it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
RTHDVCPL REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe" -s

So that is a RUN key, meaning loaded at boot time. The
registry key type is a string, and it is placed in double
quotes like that, so the space character in "Program Files"
will not cause a problem. I have no idea why the control
panel needs "-s" passed to it, but that is apparently
part of the command.

Paul

In article ,
says...

On Tue, 19 May 2015 09:38:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
Hi Paul

Thanks

I will try to remove the P drive. Shud be a way.

Any ideas what happened to my audio? And why now the Realtek Audio
panel no longer reflects what is plugged into my rear audio ports? It
used to nicely. Must be a connection to why I have lost my audio
completely. You don't think that it is because now Realtek has my
audio set up as DIGITAL? I don't recall how that came out before. It
has been a few years since I assembled this mobo.

It do seem curious as to how the loss of audio occured seemingly when
I lost the DVD drive (now in the trash), and replaced it. I have no
audio at all - from disk or otherwise.

JW

I have RealTek audio on the test machine, but the test machine
is doing memory test right now, and won't be available
for a while. I'll have a look later, and see if some
.exe under a Run key, when removed, stops sensing.

My current machine has SoundMax, so I can't use that
as a reference. Completely different software.

Paul

I have done a little research.

I have had this system for some two years now. I still have a
month-old copy of a smaller hard drive with same W7 and apps on it as
the current one. I connected it up, and booted. It showed THE SAME
phantom CD drive. I have to conclude that I just never noticed it
before. Could be I guess. Another Dementia symptom.

I looked at the Realtek Audio window from that drive, and it looks
the same. BUT STILL NO SOUND. I had sound of course in the past.
Sounds like a hardware problem that I somehow must have introduced
when I pulled all the drive wires and stuff yesterday. No idea what
right now. The audio ports of course are built onto the mobo.

I tried my earphones on my XP PC and they work, disproving the
unlikely possiblility that they went bad.


Is it possible that phantom drive is caused by a USB Thumbdrive or
external Hard Disk. I think it's Western Digitial's encryption scheme on
their external/portable Passport drives automatically installs a cd
drive which is somehow used in the encryption process. Remove the drive
and the cd drive also goes away. WD replaced one I had did this when I
bought it, called with the "WTF are you doing" complaint.

On Tue, 19 May 2015 11:45:39 -0300, pjp
wrote:


Is it possible that phantom drive is caused by a USB Thumbdrive or
external Hard Disk. I think it's Western Digitial's encryption scheme on
their external/portable Passport drives automatically installs a cd
drive which is somehow used in the encryption process. Remove the drive
and the cd drive also goes away. WD replaced one I had did this when I
bought it, called with the "WTF are you doing" complaint.


I thought of that. I did have both a thumb drive and two external
HDDS USB-plugged, but they are not connected now. I unplugged them
when I lost everything a few days back. I just checked, and no
exterenal USB anythings are connected, and haven't been since I
started this.

Good thought tho. And thanks.

JW

On Tue, 19 May 2015 10:41:31 -0400, Paul wrote:


Using sysinterals.com Autoruns, I can see a Run key
for "rtlngui64.exe". My Windows 7 is x64, so the
file has that on the end. The text string showing
in the Autoruns dialog, of course, that string
doesn't match the file name. The entry is
labeled "RTHDVCPL".

My W7 is X64 also. I did a c-drive search for 'rtlngui', found
nothing. My tray icon shows 'Realtek Digital Output 100%'. I'm think
that suspicious - I don't think my audio output should be digital. ???



That also creates a tray icon for the RealTek,
separate from the Windows volume control icon
down there.

Inside the RealTek control panel, is a "wrench" icon.
That's the icon I look for when it needs help.
In the "wrench" icon, there is a tick box
"Enable auto popup dialog, when device has been plugged in".
Mine is enabled right now.

My '"Enable auto popup dialog, when device has been plugged in". under
the wrench is and has been enabled. But it does not now show when and
where I plug in my earphones. It used to I think. That is suspicious
for sure.


The control panel was showing the speaker configuration.
I plugged in an electret microphone into the pink
colored jack, and instantly the control panel filled
to the microphone configuration dialog.

With the control panel closed, I repeated the test.
A smaller dialog, with an ugly looking microphone icon
and dialog, appeared near the Task Bar, when the
microphone was plugged in.

Locate the rtlngui64.exe. These are the details
from my x64 installation.

I searched C drive for rtlngui64.exe - did not find it.

File used. Name has varies over the years. An
older driver might even use a different naming convention.

C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe

This I find and it brings up my Realtek panel.


This is the entry that sysinternals.com Autoruns.exe program
could see. I was able to look at it in Regedit as well.
In Regedit, I had to search on "RTHDVCPL" to find it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
RTHDVCPL REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe" -s

The only RTHDVCPL I can find in my registry is @
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shar edTools\MSConfig\Startupreg\
wherein it indeed does have the only occurrence of RtkNGUI64.exe.


So that is a RUN key, meaning loaded at boot time. The
registry key type is a string, and it is placed in double
quotes like that, so the space character in "Program Files"
will not cause a problem. I have no idea why the control
panel needs "-s" passed to it, but that is apparently
part of the command.

Paul