SOLVED Asus Xonar Essence STX no sound!

Hey, this is my first thread on a forum.

So here it goes:
I have recently purchased a asus xonar essence stx, but having so much problems with it.
I have searched and searched but everything i try doesn't work.
It started with that it didnt get recognised. reboot and problem fixed. then it was the 4pin power cable, after many attempts it worked. then to the driver install. it failed becouse of digital signature missing. i dont know how i fixed it, it just self fixed after a few tryes. then the fun begins. plugged in my speakers and chose it as my default device. then in xonar essence audio center i chose ''2 speaker''. then i tried some music but no sound. i tried the ''headphone'' channel and nothing. tried every other option but no sound. tried in front panel but sound. then after some reading i tried some other drivers with no luck. i can see on the audio center that it gets signals since the ''eq'' moves when i turn on music. then i removed the realtek hd audio driver. no difference. then i removed the nvidea sound drivers. it must be from my graphic cards. still no results. then i disabled azalia audio in bios. and removed all drivers and only re installed the xonar drivers . everything looks perfect, but no sound!!! so it feels like i've tried everything. so if someone can help i would be very happy.

Info about my pc: intel i7 3770k, asus maximus v extreme, asus gtx680 sli, windows 7 ultimate 64x.

Sry for long text, bad writing and lack of pc knowledge

Welcome to the forums! I've been looking to get that card, but haven't decided if it's worth it yet.

I believe that I read somewhere that the cd that comes with the sound card does not have the proper drivers for win7 64bit and that you should get it from their website. Have you tried those?

Might want to take a look at this: http://brainbit.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/

Thank you. Yeah the cd only contains drivers to xp and vista. So i got the latest driver from asus.

Hey thanks for reply. I have tried the uni xonar drivers. With that drives everything still looked perfect but no sound.

does that card come with dolby home theater 4?

In general, you shouldn't bother with the cds and grab the latest version from the manufacturer's website. The STX had a Win7 64bit driver since 2010, it even has a win8 driver now.

Also when you try to install the driver the first thing it says is that you need to connect the power cable BEFORE installing the drivers.

If you want to move the card to another PCI-E slot, it's strongly recommended to completly uninstall the driver first because it is known to create problems.

Demlin said:

Hey thanks for reply. I have tried the uni xonar drivers. With that drives everything still looked perfect but no sound.

Click to expand...

Can you test them with the onboard to see if they work at all?

Are you sure you connected the speakers correctly?

A quick reminder, it is not recommended to connect powered speakers to the headphone port, you're supposed to connect using the RCA (red and white) connectors instead. When you switch from headphone to speakers, it switches the output from 6.3mm headphone jack to the RCA jacks.

yeh had some trouble with the power connection. in all my anger and frustration i may have ****ed up there some place.

my first connection of the speakers was with the rca. i just swapped it to headphone and swapped the software to headphone just to check if anything happened. also tried with the spdif and with headphones with no luck.

i downloaded the audio driver to the onboard audio. and the speakers work just fine. i'm starting to give up now

if there has been som problems coused by power connection, drivers installation etc. can it be fixed? or have i f*cked up my stx?

I have now tried to uninstall/remove all audio drivers from the pc. then i disabled the onboard sound in bios, turned off pc removed ps and removed the card. then i then i turned on the pc just to check that everything was removed.
then i turned of the pc, removed ps, installed card and the 4 pin power connector. turned on pc. device found, installed driver, reboot, it now was my default device becouse it was my only sound device. turned on xonar audio center switched channel to 2 speaker, plugged in my speakers to the rca. tryed som music. everything looks fine u can see the device reciving signals but no sound. i'm starting to think that the card is broken. i'm gonna try one last thing. put together some parts and check it on another pc with xp instead. wish me luck!

Problem located!

Finally i located the problem. I built an old pc and runned it with the same op w7 x64, and the card started working immediatly after installing driver. so i really scratched my head to figure out what was wrong with my new build. out of nowhere i just come up with testing the molex connector with a fan just to be 110% sure that it got power. and there it was. i had a defect molex cable connected to the card so if someone got same symptoms with their card. everything looks fine youve checked all settings is ok, recheck the molex cable to be sure it got power. nothing will tell u otherwise.

if someone wonder how the card works, i can say this. if you are looking for a card with extreme good quality sound on low-extreme hige volums, this is the card for u. i only play in stereo, with my pc speakers and with my cerwin vega setup in the living room. so i havent testet alle the surround functions. but as a stereo card u will get clear sound on hige volums if ure speakers can take it;P recomended product for stereo hifi lovers out there! *Dice roll* 6

Thanks for all replys

good job man, glad you found the source of the problem!

I Have a Similar Problem.

Hello. I have recently acquired the Asus Xonar Essence STX for my current build and have not been able to get sound to my headset. I have an Asus P8Z 77-V-Deluxe mother board and have disabled the Realtek sound in the bois. I have a Gigabite GTX680 4GB GPU and the only way can get sound is with the Nvidea High Definition Audio I guess that comes through my GPU? I have installed the 7.08.1821 drivers from the Asus sight as directed to do by one of their tech support people. Still I can't get sound to my speakers or headset. I have a BeyerDynamic MMX 300 headset for gaming and can't get any audio into it. I am not sure if the microphone is working either. Really quite frustrating. Is there a newer driver that has addressed these issues? I saw some "modded" versions listed but, don't know if they will remedy my problem. I have Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium OS. Any assistance with getting this sound card to work for my gaming setup would be a true blessing. Spent a lot of money to get good sound and coming up zilch. Thanks for your time.

Current System
Antec 900 Case
Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium
Asus P8Z-77-V-Deluxe Mobo
Intel i7 3770K CPU
Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB-16GB DDR3
Corsair HX 750 PSU
Intel 520 Series SSD 240 GB
Seagate Barracuda 3 TB Hard Drive
Gigabite GTX 680 4GB GPU
LG BH14 Reader/Writer
Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card
BeyerDynamic MMX 300 Gaming Headset.
I think that's about it. : )

I had some serious issues with the latest driver version (7.08.1821, the one you downloaded). Try the previous version, it was much more stable on Win7. 7.12.8.1794

Are you sure you connected the power cable (4 pin molex) to the sound card BEFORE installing drivers? This is one of the few sound cards that require external power and it won't work at all without it.

In the Xonar Audio Center, be sure to select Analog Out : Headphone. Sometimes it defaults to something else and the analog output simply doesn't work.

I hope that helps you, if you have further questions, feel free to ask.

Hmmm?

Well, actually I had purchased a previous Asus Xonar STX and I may have had these drivers installed before sending the original unit back to the vendor. Should I uninstall the driver version I have now? Forgive my ignorance. I had heard this can be a difficult card to get running properly. I will try to uninstall the 1821 version and go with your suggestion 1794. At this point I am willing to try anything. I will also check my settings in the Xonar Audio Center. Thanks for the immediate response. Much appreciated.

Hello Dakyris. I installed the 1794 version driver. I actually got to hear my headset for the first time while running a test in analog headset mode. It never did that with the 1821 driver. I tried to set up the microphone and it was working but, when I go into my Left 4 Dead game I can't figure out how to get the sound to go into my headset. It plays through the speakers even though my two headset jacks are plugged into the sound card. I have tried setting different components of the Asus software to the default thingy. I just can't seem to figure it out. I think I should have gone with a different sound card. This one is for tech wizards or people with incredible patience. Mine is wearing thin. Arrghh.

I wish I could've answered sooner, I was in the middle of a game. Now that last bit is actually rather easy to fix. It's a windows configuration. You just need to change your default playback device (right click the volume control icon in the task bar, playback device, find "Speakers ASUS Xonar Essence STX", right click and set as default device). So all sounds should go through the headphones now. Some games/softwares allow you to change the output device but most won't so your STX needs to be default device.

EDIT : You would've had the same issue with ANY sound card, this isn't specific to the STX. The only 2 common STX specific issues are the power some people forget to connect and the newest driver which is simply bad.

WOO HOO ! I have been trying to get this stinking sound card to work for about six months and even sent one back thinking it was junk. Now it finally works, I think. Thank you very much my friend. I am pretty computer dumb. I actually built my computer but, running software is very hard for me. Thanks again. Zombie killing time : )

great headset, it also took me a bit to figure out that you couldn't change to the different outputs of the card using the sound manager. You have to use the xonar software to switch between outputs.

I had Asus Xonar Dx for years now.It's always been kinda flaky to get working. I don't remember what driver I used but it was the third one down for the newest,it isn't a ROR file.
When you get it running it sounds soooo nice.I think its a great sound card