Troubleshooting audio problems in Windows 11 - ARTICLE

Question

Technical Level: Intermediate.

Applies to: All Windows 11 editions.

Revision: 1.0.

In this community guide, I will show you various methods to troubleshoot, in case if audio is not working properly on your system. The common audio problems you might see are:

1. Audio not working after installing some update
2. Audio loss all of sudden
3. Audio loss intermittently
4. No audio output device is installed
5. Audio services are not running
6. Anything else that prevents audio from working as expected

Solutions you can try to fix audio problems on your system:

Run Playing Audio troubleshooter

You can treat this tool as first aid solution for the fixing audio problems. This in-built tool can find and fix audio problems automatically.

1. Open Settings app and go to System.
2. Under System, go to Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters.
3. Click on Run next to Playing Audio troubleshooter.

In few moments, you will see that Playing Audio troubleshooter has found some problems and fixed them. If troubleshooter found some issues but can't fix them, continue following other methods mentioned next in this guide.

Fix the audio driver

In most of the cases involving audio problems, audio drivers can be the main root cause. You can try following suggestions if audio driver is causing an audio problem on your system:

1. Right click on the Start button or press Windows + X and select Device Manager.
2. Under Device Manager, expand Sound, video and game controllers or section where audio devices are listed.
3. Locate your audio device/driver and double click on it.
4. Verify if the device status is ‘This device is working properly’. If there is some error code with the device/driver, refer this support article to troubleshoot it.

Fix no audio output device is installed

In case if you do not see any audio driver installed under Sound, video and game controllers, go to your device manufacturer’s website and search for audio drivers for your system model. Download them and install, just like any other software. Once they are installed properly, they will be appearing under Sound, video and game controllers in Device Manager.

Refer this video guide to resolve this specific issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ignu3Qkus4s

Update or roll back your audio driver

If audio driver is listed and working properly, but still you don’t get your audio issue fixed, next you can try updating your audio driver. Double click on audio driver, go to Driver tab and click Update driver. Follow on-screen instructions to complete the update.

If the audio problem you are facing appeared after updating your driver, you can instead use Roll back Driver button to restore audio driver to previous version when it was working fine.

Fix the audio services

If running troubleshooter and making changes to the audio driver was of no help, you can next check for audio background services.

1. Press Windows + R, type services.msc and click OK.
2. In Services window, make sure these services are Running and have their Startup type set to Automatic:

• Windows Audio
• Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
• Remote Procedure Call

Disable audio enhancements

If previous methods were not helpful, then you can try disabling audio enhancements and see if it helps:

1. Go to Settings > System > Sound.
2. Click More sound settings.
3. On Sound tab, select your primary audio device and click Properties.
4. On property sheet, go to Enhancements tab.
5. Check Disable all enhancements.
6. Click Apply, OK.

If audio is not working on some specific apps, you go to Advanced tab and uncheck Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device option. Click Apply, OK.

To help you more with above steps, here's the video fix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eL-XLS-73Y

Hope this helps!