Vista: No Sound. Problem Solved. Sound On and Off? Problem Solved.

I will explain how to fix your problem if your Windows Vista has no sound. Or if the sound on Vista comes on and goes off. Read on.

Remeber not too long ago I had a strange event happen: I had the sound coming out of my Laptop's speakers and out of my headset simultaneously.

THE PREVIOUSLY "RESOLVED" PROBLEM REPEATS ITSELF...

That was kind of weird but I resolved this strange sound problem then. It repeated yesterday. Hmm.

...AND GETS WORSE

Then today, while I was watching a video about making money with your blog the vista sound went away, totally. No sound on Vista! That was very annoying!


My laptop with "Windows Vista, No Sound" version is not much fun. I'm not very good at reading lips! Anyhow I played around a bit and I found a couple of weird things going on.

• The headphones and the speakers playing simultaneously. Basically, the speakers wouldn't shut off when the headphone jack is inserted. This could be a jack problem, but it didn't look like one!
• (later) No Sound from Vista. Pressing Fn Up Arrow showed the Volume Bar, and it was at its max, but no sound. The Video Player (Flash Video Player) sound button was at 100%.

I went in decided to go deeper than last time where reboot fixed the problem for the time being. I opened the Sound Driver Manager (Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Sound), looked at Configuration and Properties. Everything looked fine initially.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED

Except this: Pressed on Speaker, Properties, again Properties under "Controller Information, High Definition Audio Device", clicked the Driver Tab on Top and pressed Disable to turn off sound! As soon as I confirmed the delete, the sound came on! I rejected the next popup suggesting to reboot to complete the changes. I liked having sound! This lasted for about 30 seconds and then the sound shut itself off again. Funny enough, I was able to repeat this procedure 3-4 times which repeatedly gave me sound for 30 or so seconds at the time. So let's add another "weird symptom" bullet:

• the sound came on after hitting the "Disable" in the sound driver and confirming!
  

I searched for Vista No Sound type problems and indeed, I found a web site http://www.filecluster.com/reviews/102008/realtek-cards-no-sound-in-vista-problem-fix/. They  suggested to reinstall the sound drivers and offered (a certain) driver download. I agreed with the reinstall part and decided to download vista sound drivers from the manufacturers site instead.
 
The strange behavior really ruled out any obvious hardware problem such as speakers or headphones or headphone jack switch. So next thing to think about: maybe the Realtek driver went bad. OK.

DOWNLOADING FRESH DRIVERS AND REMOVING THE INSTALLED DRIVERS

I proceeded to download the driver from the Acer (manufacturer) website acer.com. Selected my country, laptop model and Voila, there it was. It was a Realtek High Definition Audio Driver which seems quite common on Vista these days. About 37 Mbytes zipped. I placed it on my hard drive and proceeded to uninstall the existing driver as directed. Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Sound, Playback Tab, Speakers, General Tab, Properties, Under Controller information, High Definition Audio Device, Properties, Driver Tab, Uninstall Button (advanced). Agreed (checked) Delete the Driver Software. Click OK.

UNINSTALL SUCCESSFUL. HERE NOT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS PROVES BENEFICIAL

The driver uninstalled successfully and Vista offered a reboot. I agreed contrary to the directions from the above filecluster website. This proved successful. It turned out, it removed the need to actually install the downloaded driver as Vista found (the old?) drivers and installed them during the restart process. Mind you, I feel the "old" Vista drivers were up-to-date.

VISTA NO SOUND PROBLEM SOLVED

The sound came back. Vista, No Sound Problem Solved. For now. I'll keep you posted.

MY PROBLEM SOLVED. WHAT ABOUT YOURS? LEAVE A COMMENT PLEASE?

Let me know if these directions helped with your sound or even if they didn't help you. Either way, leave me a comment, would you!

IF YOUR PROBLEM IS SOLVED, BOOKMARK THIS PAGE FOR LATER!

And if it did help you, I would appreciate your bookmarking this with your favorite service like Digg or StumbleUpon below. That way you can come back here when needed and others can find this solution more easily as well.

SOLVED? Sound Output on Laptop From Both Speakers AND Headphones

PROBLEM - BOTH SPEAKERS AND HEADPHONES PLAYING

I had a strange thing happen to me today. Almost as if taken from a zombie movie.

Laptop speakers came alive all by themselves!



[UPDATE: This now appears as an overture into Vista No Sound problem, sound drivers going bad, and having to reinstall them later]

I inserted a set of headphones in my Acer Aspire laptop front panel. I was listening to a webcast and I didn't want to disturb my friend. Shortly thereafter my friend alerted me however that my speakers are playing loud!

Crazy- it was hard to believe. Impossible to know by myself because the headsets are all I heard!

Normally I'd expect that when inserting the headphones jack the speakers would be muted. Not this time. Tried plugging and unplugging the headset. Regardless, speakers keep on playin'!

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

What would you do to fix this? Well I tried a few things. Plug/unplug the headphone jack failed. Went into my Device Manager, under Sound, disabled my Realtek sound card. That cut off the sound completely. Turned it back on, still, both headphones and speaker keep on playin'!

FINAL SOLUTION?

Finally, decided to reboot the Vista laptop. That solved the problem and everything works as usual.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Till next time! What do YOU think was going on? What would you do? Please comment if you have a clue!

OTHER PEOPLE WHO COULD BE HELPED BY THIS

This guy with an Asus could be helped, possiby.
These guys at Tom''s Hardware think this is normal behavior. Well not for my laptop!
Some folks actually prefer to have sound from both speakers and headset simultaneously(Win 7)!