Laptop's sound is suddenly unpredictable

[Pharaoh_]

Hey,

I believe that the first time this occurred was after the latest Windows Update or change of power plan (which I set to Balanced, but then changed it back to High performance and the issue is still present). The problem is that whenever I switch on my laptop or whenever it wakes up from sleeping mode, the sound is absent. I have of course checked the obvious, such as the sound being muted, sound driver being up-to-date, which sound source is set as default, etc.

Yesterday, I had to go through Speaker Setup in Sound to "Test" the sound source and the sound came back. Today, I tried doing the same and it gives me a pop-up:
"The device is being used by another application. Please close any devices that are playing audio to this device and then try again.".

I ran the Task Manager to see which applications would potentially interfere (and why, given that I did not have this problem in the past). However, I am not able to tell. Why would some application occupy the driver upon the launch of Windows, preventing sounds from being played? Even if I try to play a song, the Windows Media Player reports: "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file" (it happens in every audio file actually).

I have of coursed google'd similar cases, but they are talking about power plans. Having switched back to the High Performance one, I should not have this issue anymore. Additionally, I checked my devices, everything is enabled and up-to-date.

Finally, I went to Services from Control Panel's Administrative Tools and tried to disable Windows Audio to establish the cause. When I stopped it, it told me that Kinect Management was using this. Since I do not use Kinect, I removed it (but the messages of the device being used were still there).

Now I got to Sound from Control Panel and I have two speakers listed; through Manage option (right-click on My Computer) I disabled one of them and the sound is back. I never had such an issue with both of the sound devices being simultaneously enabled.

P.S. Usually a restart fixes the problem, but why is it there in the first place?
P.S.1 I am on Windows 8.

 

[Dr Super Good]

It could be the driver device files have been paged off from main memory. This is especially possible if the computer is asleep and losses power. Obviously it must then wait for them to be paged back but this could take anywhere from 15 seconds to many minutes if the hard disk is performing badly due to age.

A lot of lap top sound drivers have two levels. A kernel level driver which should never be paged off (as its part of the OS, time critical) and a user level sound management process which can be paged off. I notice this on a laptop I sometimes use that causes it to take 15 seconds to change volume levels while the user level process re-loads.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Thanks for the reply! So, what do you suggest? My laptop is like 8 months old. My actual question is why did it start happening all of a sudden (unless the windows update has indeed introduced conflicting changes).

 

[Velmarshal]

Try uninstalling the driver. If that doesn't work, install an older version of the driver.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Thanks for the reply! So, what do you suggest? My laptop is like 8 months old. My actual question is why did it start happening all of a sudden (unless the windows update has indeed introduced conflicting changes).

OEM drivers are notorious of such problems. To make you feel like you are getting value for money they add all kinds of nonsense which is technically not necessary. The best example is with graphic drivers where they specifically make their cards so the actual vendors (NVidia or AMD in this case) cannot update them after X months. If it is new your best bet is to file some complaint or problem report with the OEM, hopefully you are still supported and they will look into it.

You could also try and parallel boot Linux and see if the sound works fine there to rule out hardware problems. Probably unnecessary mind you and sound may not work anyway as Linux has a lot of problem supporting OEM chips.

 

[edo494]

This seems to be windows 8 specific problem. 2 of my friends that have windows 8 and totally different mashines(one is literally 2 days old) had the same problem in past 2 days. One had fo reinstall drivers, the other one restarted computer and the sounds worked for him again

 

[Dr Super Good]

If it is a Windows 8 update related issue, Microsoft should have it fixed in a week or two. Depending on what the issue is, you may need to manually apply the fix via a patch executable. These are usually provided by Microsoft for fixing such problems. Other times it may be possible to manually fix it if it is not a program error but something else like a registry error.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Had the same issue again today. I toyed around with disabling and enabling and changing the default speakers to make it work. I uninstalled and re-installed it, but it wouldn't play. It also gives me an Error Code 10 (which I searched, but is pretty vague).
Eh, this is annoying.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Yesterday I went over to my friend. Turns out she has the exact same problem.

P.S. It's not only us http://www.eightforums.com/sound-audio/49684-no-sound-device-being-used-another-application.html

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Send some angry consumer feedback for MS. Windows 8 is so expensive it should at least be able to play sound.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Send some angry consumer feedback for MS. Windows 8 is so expensive it should at least be able to play sound.

I wanted to, but I am sure that hundreds have reported it already. Hopes for the best