Sound Stopped Working on a Windows 10 x64 system.

I apologize for posting a tech problem like this hear, but I thought I'd try every avenue I could.

I admit, It's embarrassing since I cannot figure out what's going on.

I was watching a video on Youtube and suddenly the sound stopped working on my system.

I plugged in a USB Headset and was able to get sound through that for the time being. When I unplugged the headset, the sound crackled to life very low on my speakers. After fiddling with the wires, sound came back in full for about 10 minutes before going quiet once more.

I dug and old pair of USB speakers out storage, and connected them up to the system. All I was able to get was a high pitched whine and interference.

So on a guess, I took the speakers to my laptop. They worked perfectly without a hitch.

Going back to the Desktop, I uninstalled and reinstalled all the audio drivers.. still no sound. I went to the manufacturer's website and got the newest drivers for Windows 10, and installed them. No sound... I even did a clean install, no sound.

It is a Realtek HD Audio chipset on an Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboard. I think there is something wrong with the port, but when I plug the speakers in, the speakers are detected and show up in the "Playback Devices" tab under the sound control panel.

So, any help would be appreciated!

Do you have any Windows updates that need to be installed?

If so, install them, and then restart.

I know people who have experienced that issue before, the audio just stops working all of a sudden, and even after restart it doesn't work until after they install the updates and restart.  I'm not all that sure the reason for it, but maybe give that a shot if there are pending updates that need installing.

Squarehard said:

Do you have any Windows updates that need to be installed?

If so, install them, and then restart.

I know people who have experienced that issue before, the audio just stops working all of a sudden, and even after restart it doesn't work until after they install the updates and restart. I'm not all that sure the reason for it, but maybe give that a shot if there are pending updates that need installing.

Click to expand...

I've done 3 sets of updates just in case, for some reason if I don't fully update.. it'll prevent Skype from opening at times.

Just checked to find another handful.

Jiryn said:

I've done 3 sets of updates just in case, for some reason if I don't fully update.. it'll prevent Skype from opening at times.

Just checked to find another handful.

Click to expand...

Odd, it's hung up at 28% for an hour now.

Fixed, took an entire night of updating drivers and an SP for WIndows 10 but it's working fine now!

(I don't know if it is an SP, but when it installed a huge patch which made it look like an initial installation again.. I thought of it as one)

It happened to me on a laptop randomly. I read up on it and it's an issue where Windows 10 updates make drivers stop working and you basically have to wait for the audio drivers to then be updated again or Windows to fix the issue with another update.