onboard sound very poor quality - PCI card no difference

[scottb721]

My inlaws PC has next to no sound coming from it. It's there, just very quiet.
We ran it into another amp to rule out the speaker set up. When turned right up it gets distorted too.

We connected a PCI sound card, turned off onboard sound in BIOS, moved the audio cable to the PCI card but it still sounds the same.

MB is a Soltek SL-75KAV socket A board.

Does this sound like the boards crapped out ?

I might add that one of the onboard USB sockets no longer works also.
Thanks

[Poppa_Meth]

Never hurts to check the obvious first. Have you checked the master sound controls in windows? I don't think it would be a mobo problem if it is the same way with a PCI card.

[Supreme2k]

Also, what PCI sound card are you using? If it's just as shitty (or worse) than your on-board, that wouldn't help you find the problem.

[pfh]

Have you ruled out the audio cable from the cd rom to the card?
Windows sound/speaker setup might be incorrect.

[Bjs]

Its driver corruption .

Uninstall and reinstall the drivers should sort most sound problems out , and if it dosent , reinstalling the os will .

Download the latest drivers should also cure the problem , but I know the website , and it takes time getting anything from them , thats why I use only gigabyte motherboards .

[scottb721]

It was a C-media 5.1 card.

I thought perhaps adding the PCI card and installing it's drivers, (which came from the MS update site after the CD drives didn't make any diff to the prob) , would rule out onboard sound driver issues.