Audio chip on Motherboard died...do I have to disable it in BIOS?

[jwfilion]

A friend is sending me a USB audio adapter to play sound after my chip died (I assume). The computer does beep through the speakers, but no sound from videos and such. I was going to get a card, but he told me to try the adapter first. This computer is old and I only use it occasionally. I need the audio for the videos I use. I'm not sure if I need to disable the audio chip in the BIOS for something else to work.  Any thoughts?



Mind Computer Products
Intel Celeron 1.80GHz, 2 GB Ram
WinXP Home / SP3
Mainboard ECS P4VMM2
S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR
Vinyl AC'97 Audio
Google Chrome
Avast Antivirus,
ThreatFire,
PC Tools Firewall Plus,SUPERAntiSpyware
CCleaner, HyJackthis, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

[BC_Programmer]

How can you be certain the Audio chip is broken? Particularly since AC '97 Audio is entirely implemented via a Software driver that uses the System Processor, and there isn't a discrete audio chip... It could be a driver issue.

To answer your question though, No, you shouldn't have to disable it. If the system is old enough to have AC '97 Audio, it probably also uses USB 1.1 which means that it's possible the Sound Adapter might not work very well, if at all.

[jwfilion]

Driver issue was the first thing I thought of, so I updated all the drivers. Still no sound. I thought it may be an issue with a broken audio plug. There are two green plugs, one front and one on the back. Both seem to have power to them, but no sound through them. I don't know what else to do
I do have USB 2.0 through a pci card, if that matters. Any help would be appreciated.

[Zaeem]

I think your USB Sound Card will work fine, now that you have USB 2.0 port available. Also, first test the card without disabling the internal card. If it causes any conflicts, then only  you should disable it.