Audio randomly stops working, restart is only temporary fix

i have this same problem. your answers do not fix it. this is becoming really unbearable having to restart my desktop 20 times a day

I'm having the same problem on a miniPC with a USB speaker bar. But have seen it on my previous desktop with other headphone jack speakers and different USB speakers. Only thing I have not tried is HDMI. Its installed on two of my monitors, but the monitors do not have audio capabilities (i.e. they are the cheap version).

I believe it is in the driver based on my experience so far, but have not been annoyed enought to waste time on it until now.

Easiest fix I have found (i.e. no reboot necessary) is to open sound settings (right click the task bar icon). Select the non-functioning speakers on the Output box "Choose where to play sound" to open the Speaker's "Properties". Under General the "Audio" option has a "Allow" / "Don't allow" box. Choosing "Don't allow" then "Allow" always immediately restores the sound to my speakers. This is why I believe it is a driver problem where the signal to "Allow apps and Windows to use this device for audio" setting gets overwritten somewhere down the line. While the system settings show the speakers as still being "allow"ed, something further along changes it to "Don't allow" until you reset it in the system settings. My current driver is the "Generic U Audio" 19-Oct-23 ver. 10.0.226621.2506 which my system says is the latest.

First time I've posted an answer to this site. Hope it helps. At the very least it may return sound without requiring the lengthy reboot.

This has been happening to me too, maybe once every couple weeks it'll randomly stop and I have to unplug and plug it back in for it to work again. I'm wondering if this is somehow an AMD problem. I don't remember when this started but I did upgrade from Intel to AMD a year or two ago. To you and to any future people who find this on google (or bing), is your CPU from Intel or from AMD?

Hi, I am an Independent Advisor.

Please hover your mouse to the sound icon at the lower right-hand corner then right click it and click Troubleshoot Sound. Let the troubleshooter finish until its done then this should either fix the problem or give us an error message.

If that didn't work, we need to remove the Audio driver from the Device Manager and restart the pc to reinstall it.

Here the steps to completely remove a Device off your computer.

Step 1. Use shortcut keys Windows key+ X on Windows 10.

Step 2. Select Device Manager.

Step 3. Expand the entry Sound, Video and Game Controllers Right-click the problematic device it is either Realtek Audio, or AMD High-definition Audio or High-Definition Audio this varies on the audio device installed in your PC and select Uninstall device.

Step 4. You need to check the option Delete the driver software for this device, and then click the Uninstall button.

Step 5. Reboot the computer.

After the reboot, please see it the problem is fixed.

If that still would not work, please visit the support website of your laptop or desktop and then download and install the latest Audio driver then restart the PC.

Thank you for posting this. My Alienware windows 11 machine (RealTek speakers) has been having this issue for about a year now and it's driving me crazy. I finally caved and bought a pair of external computer speakers in hopes that a different manufacturer and different drivers will make this problem go away. I think you are correct that it is a driver issue.