About "No Sound"
Are you having difficulties producing sound or music from a computer that once had no problems doing so? There are a number of reasons that cause the loss of sound and audio from a computer. Most often, it is the audio device driver that is the origin of the issue. In this article I will discuss:
How your audio device actually works
Loss of audio and what causes it
The common symptoms of "no sound"
How to fix "no sound"
Before we begin discussing the loss of sound on your computer and how it can be fixed, it should first be explained how exactly an audio device works. With this knowledge, you may better understand one of the components of your computer and perhaps better understand what went wrong and how to fix it.
The Audio Device: How it Works
Sound cards (audio controllers, audio chips, audio cards) are connected to a computer using one of two methods: integration and expansion (dedicated or stand-alone). Integration of a hardware component with the motherboard means that the device itself is a part of the motherboard and cannot be removed. In contrast, a stand-alone component is plugged into the motherboard by way of an expansion slot such as PCI or PCIe and can be removed should it need to be replaced or upgraded. In either situation, the device works the same.
The audio device works by utilizing a small, audio processor dedicated to handling any and all audio signals that the operating system is requested to produce. This method of delegating a similar group of tasks, such as audio signals, to a device separate from the CPU (central processing unit), reduces the CPU workload, allowing it to focus it's energy on other, more complicated and priority tasks. However, the audio device does not know how to do anything without the assistance of a small but essential software component called a driver.
The Audio Device: The Driver
A driver is a piece of software that contains the instructions for a hardware device so that the device knows how to communicate with other devices and with the operating system. It may seem silly that a sophisticated device like an audio card doesn't already know how to do these things, but in fact the device is very dependent upon it's driver. Without the driver, the device simply will not function at all. This is why the audio driver is often a common problem for "no sound".
The driver for any given piece of hardware is developed by the same manufacturer of the device. The development of drivers is continuous and progressive. The developers are constantly looking for new ways to improve the performance of existing technology by researching new ways to make the driver out-perform the hardware. This technology is called hardware acceleration and is common in many other hardware devices as well. Drivers are updated quite frequently as the developers discover improvements and they are distributed freely from their websites. However, implementing the new technology can be challenging for most users as often times a driver must be installed manually.
So far, we have covered how an audio device works and how it does it's job with the assistance of an audio device driver. With this understanding of the device and it's operation, we can now begin to unravel the mystery behind the "no sound" problem.
Common Causes of "No Sound"
The audio device is no longer producing sound which it previously had no issue with. The causes of this problem can range over different areas and configuration windows of your computer. The most common causes are...
the audio settings are not configured properly.
the audio card is damaged.
the driver for the audio card has gone missing or has become corrupted.
the driver for the audio card is out-of-date.
a recent upgrade or repair to the operating system caused faults with the audio driver.
It's common for audio settings to accidentally be knocked out of tune and with the development of new and better drivers occurring on a regular basis, the driver can become out-of-date very quickly. It's not uncommon for an audio card to go bad either. Audio cards do a lot of work, especially if you listen to a lot of music or watch a lot of movies on your computer. Upgrades or repair installations to the Windows operating system can also cause driver issues with audio cards as well.
This article will cover each one of these causes and provide steps for troubleshooting them. The tutorials here will guide you through the process of investigating the "no sound" problem and provide solutions for each problem. To manually trouble shoot your "no sound problems, check out our quick guide on how to fix your "no sound" problems.
If you want to avoid the hasstle and risk of looking for the correct drivers yourself, we recommend using the automatic method described below.
How to Easily Fix "No Sound"
The root cause of "no sound" issues are almost always related to driver conflicts. There are literally millions of possible driver configurations in today's PC's. Finding the correct driver combination without crashing your computer or causing devices to stop functioning properly can be extremely difficult and time-consuming. Even the most skilled PC Technicians use automated tools to quickly repair "no sound" problems.
The easiest and safest way to fix "no sound" issues is to use an automated tool that takes the guesswork - and the legwork - out of it. An automated tool saves you the time of searching various sources for your sound problems, and ensures that you have the right drivers for your specific PC.
DriverUpdate automatically detects any driver problems on your computer and determines the correct, most up-to-date drivers for your system. This guarantees your computer won't encounter errors from incorrect or out-of-date drivers and makes problems with "No Sound" a thing of the past. To ensure you get the right drivers that repair your sound issues for good, use the Highly Recommended tool that makes it easy, use DriverUpdate.
The hours spent manually researching, and the inherent risks associated with installing drivers on your computer, we Strongly Recommend SlimWare's DriverUpdate. ( Click Here To Download DriverUpdate )