My computer audio does not work

Question

I have a windows 7 dell, that was rebuilt before I purchased it. I have no idea who I bought it from now. It has never had audio from the speakers, so today I plugged in headphones and that doesn't work either.

The speakers don't work at all.  When I searched for the driver, it says no errors. I am afraid to uninstall because it was rebuilt and if I mess something up, I have an issue on my hands.

Answer 1

We recommend checking for updates of the audio drivers that are currently installed on your computer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open Device Manager.
2. Click the drop-down arrow beside Sound, video, and game controllers.
3. Right-click the listed device (or devices) and click Properties.
4. Click the Details tab.
5. From the Property drop-down, choose Hardware Ids. 

6. The Vendor ID and Device ID for that particular device will be listed. Right-click on the last and shortest one, and click Copy. Paste it to Notepad and delete the HDAUDIO\FUNC_01& at the start, as well as the &SUBSYS_#### at the end. You'll have something like this: VEN_10EC&DEV_0221. 

7. You can use this code to look for drivers from the Microsoft Catalog Website.

8. Click the Last Updated tab to sort the results and download the latest version.

9. In case the driver isn't available in the Microsoft Catalog, we suggest checking the manufacturer's website instead.

10. Once you've got the updated versions of the sound drivers, you can uninstall the drivers from Device Manager and reinstall the updated versions.

Let us know what happens after installing the updated versions of your sound drivers.

Answer 2

The speakers are through both my computer (when I plug in my headphones to the computer it doesn't work) and through my monitor.

I don't know about files stored on my computer, because I have no audio files on my computer, but the sound doesn't work with anything online.

All I have done is gone through to the troubleshooter on my pc, and it says there are no issues. I also went into the device manager, it also said no issues.

Answer 3

Hi,

It's possible that this is happening due to outdated drivers. We'd like to learn more about your concern so that we could provide the proper resolution. We just have a few questions for you:

• Are the speakers built-in to your computer, or are they plug-and-play speakers?
• Does this happen only when playing audio files stored locally on the computer, or does this also happen when playing audio online?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far, aside from checking for the audio driver? Just to confirm, did you do this through Device Manager?