I have Windows 7, sp1, and have had this issue basically for as long as I've had my computer. Went with the onboard Realtek audio figuring I wouldn't need anything else. For the last 18 months I've looked high and low for an answer, never found my particular problem online and none of the solutions offered to other close problems worked. Here's the jist of the problem:
Completely randomly and out of the blue, my sound card will stop functioning. When I either reset my PC or put it into Sleep and bring it back out, the sound resumes. This comes with a number of weird anomalies. First, my microphone still works, so I can communicate to people that my sound has died. Two, the sound playing still shows up in my speaker levels as if it were working but nothing comes out. If I'm streaming my computer although my microphone still works my sound stutters at atrocious levels. It used to only happen once in a blue moon, or once or twice in a given week then not again for another month, so I'd research the answer for like 30 minutes after getting really upset then forget about it and move on. Over the last 2-3 weeks it's been happening with increased frequency, though it still just happens completely randomly. I'm hoping to once and for all fix this problem.
Fixes I've tried:
1) Uninstalling old drivers and re-installing the latest ones.
2) Checking Event Viewer for conflicts
3) Tried killing and restarting the audio services process (can't remember that one off the top of my head)
4) Tried disabling and re-enabling the sound output
5) Tried multiple headsets of different brands plugged into both sets of jacks
6) Cleaned out my computer
From reading a ton online it sounds like I most likely have a conflict, not a hardware issue, but how to figure out what's conflict if at all (since Event Viewer shows nothing) I have absolutely no idea.
Completely randomly and out of the blue, my sound card will stop functioning. When I either reset my PC or put it into Sleep and bring it back out, the sound resumes. This comes with a number of weird anomalies. First, my microphone still works, so I can communicate to people that my sound has died. Two, the sound playing still shows up in my speaker levels as if it were working but nothing comes out. If I'm streaming my computer although my microphone still works my sound stutters at atrocious levels. It used to only happen once in a blue moon, or once or twice in a given week then not again for another month, so I'd research the answer for like 30 minutes after getting really upset then forget about it and move on. Over the last 2-3 weeks it's been happening with increased frequency, though it still just happens completely randomly. I'm hoping to once and for all fix this problem.
Fixes I've tried:
1) Uninstalling old drivers and re-installing the latest ones.
2) Checking Event Viewer for conflicts
3) Tried killing and restarting the audio services process (can't remember that one off the top of my head)
4) Tried disabling and re-enabling the sound output
5) Tried multiple headsets of different brands plugged into both sets of jacks
6) Cleaned out my computer
From reading a ton online it sounds like I most likely have a conflict, not a hardware issue, but how to figure out what's conflict if at all (since Event Viewer shows nothing) I have absolutely no idea.
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