SOLUTION: X34 no sound from speakers

Hi, 

 

I got my new PC home with my new X34 monitor and for the last two hours I couldn't get the sound to come out of the speakers (or the headphone jack out the back).  The solution is this: 

 

1. Go into the Start Menu and Search for NVIDIA to bring up the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL

 

2.  Under the category: Display  click on: Set Up Digital Audio  

 

3. Click on: Open Windows Sound Settings...  

 

Select Acer X34 then click on Set Default and that's it!  You now have sound.  

 

 

But now a rant...

 

I'm old(ish).  I used to own PCs in the x486 days back when the internet was new (with dial-up) and the original Doom was first released and it was awesome.  

 

I associated using PCs with the usual string of technical issues with compatibility, upgrading, downloading new drivers, etc, etc.  

 

In 2006 I sold up everything to live and work overseas opting to shift from a desktop PC to a very expensive PC laptop however when I got it home I discovered that it didn't have the specs it was advertised to have, and when the store realised that it indeed couldn't get to its advertised resolution they refunded my money, but I now only had just three days before I was to get on a plane.  Out of desperation I bought a MacBook Pro, which did have the specs I needed (but was $500 more expensive).  

 

This event was, in fact, the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.  I didn't think so at first, but after a while the Mac design philosophy started to creep into my brain and I began to understand why Mac people are Mac people.  But more on that later...

 

It's now been ten years of using Macs and I finally caved to buy a PC, mostly because I bought a Vive.  I went hard core and bought an i7 6700k with a GTX1080 and of course a Predator x34.  

 

Having spent the last 10 years ensconsed in the Mac wolrd, getting back into PCs was exactly the experience I knew it to be an entire decade ago.  

 

The User-Interface of PCs are a mess.  An ugly, confusing mess.  Things that you expect to be set as default are not, and instead are hidden several menus deep.  Or, like the above example, in pop-ups within pop-ups.  

 

And it's AAAAAALL so ugly.    

 

I'm looking forward to playing Doom (the new one) and I'm looking forward to using my Vive, no doubt, but PCs are a **** of over-engineered technical clumsiness.  For a PC rig and monitor that I paid top dollar for, I spent the first two hours trying to uncover why my brand new toys didn't work properly.  They did, they just weren't set up to do so out of the box.  

 

When I plugged in my i7 and my x34 in for the first time and started them up there was nothing but a blank screen....  Why?  Because the x34 didn't detect that it was connected via a DisplayPort cable and I had to manually select it from HDMI to DisplayPort using the buttons underneath.  That's bad.  That's really bad. 

 

When I finally did get it to work I looked to connect to my wi-fi only to discover that I overlooked that detail with my computer purchase and it didn't actually come with wi-fi.  (I assumed all computers came with wi-fi these days since my Macs all did).  So be it, but to trudge through many menus to eventually discover that my PC didn't some with wi-fi was overly difficult.  I had to the internet on my iPhone to work out how to navigate to the Network Adapters menu under the Device Manager to find out my settings.  I still, right this minute, don't know how to easily access the Device Manager without using the Search feature.  That is so user-unfriendly it's crazy... 

 

Once I did hook my new PC to the internet and played a youtube vid there was no sound.... So after different cable attempts and headphone attempts to narrow down the problem, I searched online to hear others with the same issue thinking that my top end monitor really did have a problem and I'd have to take it back...

 

That felt so utterly depressing and I was left feeling very deflated.  

 

Two hours later I finally solved it, but I wanted to tell you that this would NEVER happen on a Mac. 

 

They're not perfect, but they do have an actual design philosophy that is basically this: 

 

    "The experience of using a computer should be a joy."  

 

What this means is that if you pay top dollar for a product they don't want you jumping through technical hoops just to try to make your machine work the way it was intended to work.  Y'know, with sound and stuff.  

 

It is depressingly obvious that PCs still don't get it even over a decade later.  Wow...

 

That's impressive, and not in a good way.  

 

[word filter avoidance]