What is this Multi-Media Audio Controller I found?

I have a Multi-Media Audio Controller in my Device Manager that has a yellow question mark on it. The weird thing is, all my sound devices look normal. I went in there to look because I have lost sound in the right channel. Well, not entirely lost, but it's very very quiet. I replaced the speakers, but the problem stayed, so it's not them.

I have the same problem when I plug in my ear phones (when I listen only in the right one I can barely hear anything with the sound on Max, the left is fine), so I went to look for drivers for my SoundBlaster X-Fi and reinstalled them all, but the yellow question mark is still there.

Here's the thing: When I use the channel test in either Control Panel or in the Creative Labs control panel that came with the card's drivers, the channels test fine, but they both come from the left speaker!

I am tired and my brain is fried. Help? :confused

 

Do you have on-board sound also?
Maybe a recent chipset update turned it on for whatever reason.
This may be better off in Hardware forum.

 

I do, and I had completely forgotten that I do! :banghead

I rebooted into BIOS and sure enough, the onboard audio was set to "auto". I changed it to "disable", saved my changes, exited, and rebooted Windows. The multi-media controller with the question mark is now gone from Device Manager, so that is some progress. Yay! The bad news is, both the right and the left channel are still going to the left speaker.

Can this be a hardware issue after all? Later today, when I'm not in the middle of cooking something and have time to fully focus, I will test that theory by taking out the sound card and moving the speakers to the onboard sound. If that works, I will know the problem is with the SoundBlaster X-Fi card.

I'll post back with status updates as I go along.

You might be right that I should have posted this in the hardware forum. If so, perhaps some nice and kind moderator would be willing to move the thread for me?

 

Just few obvious things to double check no insult intented.

Are you using 5.1 speakers or stereo?If stereo check your headphones/speakers are plugged into the green socket on the soundcard.

Check speaker settings in control panel check speakers volumes are both turned up,in advance check its set to desktop stereo speakers and creative control panel is set to stereo speakers,check volume controls both master volume and wave balance is central.

 

None taken. I know how easy it is to miss the obvious stuff.

Speakers are from a 5.1 set, but used as stereo speakers due to lack of space. Plugged in according to the manual/user guide schematic for a two-speaker configuration.

Speakers both set to Max, set to "two desktop speakers in stereo". Wave and balance both set to central.

I opened the case and pulled out the X-Fi, then rebooted and enabled the onboard in BIOS. Blonde moment: The yellow question mark returned to Device Manager, and it took me several seconds to remember it was the onboard audio-chip. :banghead

I went to the ASUS website and downloaded my onboard sound drivers, installed them, rebooted when prompted, plugged in the speakers and fired up Nightwish.

Silence.

So I unplugged the speakers, plugged in earphones, and tried to listen to Nightwish again. Still silence. Grrr. Reasoning that one channel is better than no sound at all, I uninstalled every single software trace of any sound card driver or application I ever had installed, then rebooted. Put the X-Fi back in, downloaded the latest driver from Creative's website and installed all of it... and now it works. Stereo! :celebrate

I wonder why it didn't work the first time I tried to reinstall the drivers. :confused