No sound with Windows 7

Righto, a little stuck here. I've installed Windows 7 and now I have no sound. I've done all the updates and it's telling me the drivers are all installed fine. In fact according to Windows there is no problem, except there is because I got no sound actually coming out! Yes it is plugged in and yes it is turned up. HEEEEELP!!!!

reply to post by DJKris


Can you say a little more about your system?

Are you using an integrated sound card or a stand alone card? Are you using DVI/HDMI/Optical/Analog output cables? Do you have any exclamation points in Device Manager? Are you sending to a receiver or directly to speakers?

Do you see the small speaker icon in your system tray (below right, next to the time)?

I had that problem on my laptop, i have touch sensitiv buttons, and every time i moved the laptop i pressed the mute button, i didn't show the red X on the speaker icon in the right corner, took me a month to figure that out

I don't know if that is your problem, just a suggestion.

The sound card is in the back of the PC, it's one with the 3 different coloured jack connections (green being for speakers). I do have a speaker in the bottom right of the screen and it shows the volumes are on and up. There is no exclamation mark in Device Manager.

From looking on the PC it's as if everything is working, except it's not. The speakers are build into the monitor and the volume is turned up on that too.

check the volume level on your tool bar,had this happen and it drove me mad for 2 days.its something simple like that i' sure.my windows 7 works great

If you have some earphones, headset or something, try to plug them in, just to test if any sound is send to the card and the out jack.

reply to post by DJKris


Try this (unless your motherboard is incredibly old).

Unplug the speakers from the sound card and then attempt to adjust the volume level in windows. If all is good in the world, windows will tell you that it doesn't detect any speakers plugged in.

That being said.......

windows 7 is pretty good at picking up generic drivers for your system but......

some systems require the chipset driver to be installed before attempting to install or active onboard devices. This is more common with laptops though.

Are you SURE you have installed the correct driver packages from the motherboard manufacturer? windows doesn't do that for you in most cases.

another thing to check is in your BIOS settings, make sure the onboard sound card isn't disabled in the bios. Most computers require an F key pressed during boot to bring you into the bios. Commons keys are:

F2, F10, F12, ESC.

Don't fiddle with any settings in there though, just verify the onboard devices are enabled.

also in windows ensure the speaker configuration is correct, if you only have stereo speakers, set it as that, not as surround sound. If set incorrectly, and you have a HD audio card, your green "speaker" port becomes the center channel only, and unless you are watching a DTS dvd, you won't hear a peep out of the speakers.

reply to post by DJKris


Is this one of those "intelligent" sound cards that asks you what you plugged into it when you connect your speakers? I've seen those "mallfunction" before. What does the icon above the volume slider say in your system tray when you hover over it?

If none of this works for you can you please open up Device Manager, expand the "Sound, video and game controllers" portion and tell us what's there?

If it shows up as a generic device right click, hit properties, and screenshot/post the information from the "drivers" tab.

I always assume when someone asks for support they've tried the basics.. So I'm assuming you've already checked cables, checked the device status in windows, checked power and volume levels, etc. Would be nice to know what card you are working with exactly.

In a few minutes I'll reboot and go into the BIOS to check it's enabled.

When I first installed Windows 7 the speaker icon shows a red cross to say the drivers weren't installed, but after Windows had done it's first set of Windows Updates and rebooted the red cross was gone and all appeared fine, other than the lack of sound that was actually coming out.

If I unplug the speaker cable from the PC it does still allow me to adjust the volume.

I'm not sure if this could have made a difference, but at the same time as installing Windows 7, I put a video card in (plugs into the motherboard) out of an old PC. Now the video card doesn't have a speaker output, it's purely for connecting a VCR or TV arial to it, except it does have an output for the monitor. Since pluging this card in I can ONLY connect the monitor to the video card rather than the output that was already on the PC. If this is the problem what do I do? I want to be able to connect external video devices to my PC, but obviosuly without sound it's a little pointless


EDIT: In Device Manager under Sound, etc it says "SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio" which from memory is what it was before when I was on XP.

Often times, the hardware in the computer requires specific drivers. Note, win7 will not alert you that these additional drivers are missing or needed. E.g. i have a dell latitude, and i recently upgraded to win7. Ran into the same issue. Found the list/source of all dell drivers needed specific to each model.

If you can tell us what the audio device is we can point you to the correct driver.

start/control panel/device manager

expand sound devices

right click/properties

Probably a realtek audio device if it's onboard.


If you are using an ATI HDMI video device it might be passing HD audio through the HDMI port. Is your new video card HDMI or something else?

If you can see the audio device in device manager then it's enabled. If you can't see it then you should reboot. No need to check BIOS right now if you can see it in Winders.

reply to post by DJKris

EDIT: In Device Manager under Sound, etc it says "SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio" which from memory is what it was before when I was on XP.

No yellow flags in device manager? SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio on the laptops I deal with, pre win7, required the "hd audio bus driver" installed after the chipset, then a reboot, then the audio driver. windows assumed the sound worked fine, but no dice, if you did the steps incorrectly, it would tell you to install the HD audio bus driver first.

I'd go get the newest soundmax drivers to start off.

Unless you are using HDMI, that monitor will not affect your audio at all. Windows might have disabled your onboard video when detecting that new video card, but this won't affect your sound card at all.

Just saw your edit.

Try following this advice:

www.sevenforums.com...

It seems there are issues with Soundmax drivers and Windows 7. This should correct your problem.

Please let me know if it does!

Coincidentally my work PC uses the same audio device.

This is the driver I am using and it works fine.

www.x-drivers.com...

Uninstall and reinstall drivers manually or you could run into problemos.

Hey there

I have the exact same problem with my laptop, it is a HP DV5000 and I installed windows 7 x64 on it, came up with no sound, I don't know if it is the same problem you have but I found these instructions on the net that I use every time I need to re-install, (my computer crashes a lot lol) I don't know if you mentioned whether or not you have an HP but I heard HP failed to make a driver to work properly with windows 7 x64, someone named "Crashgordon" on this website found a way around it and made it work for me. If not an HP you can try the same directions with your computer manufacturers generic driver from their website.
Also quick note, again not sure if someone mentioned it, if you have the windows 7 with both x32 and x64 you can downgrade to x32 and it is suppose to work, I don't know I only have x64.

here are the instuctions...
From CrashGordon
I had same problem and after three days, I got it solved. It's a process, but it worked for me. Go to Hp's website and download the driver 35558 and attempt to install it. It won't work, but it will copy the files to the folder c:swsetupSp35558. Next, go to Realtek's site and download the Vista, Windows 7 HD audio driver and unzip it. Folder will be called Vista_Win7_R227. Run the setup that's in that folder then reboot when it's finished. Then, go to the device manager and navigate to the Audio device and choose update driver. Don't let Windows search for a driver, but choose to browse for it. On the next page, choose "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer." On the next page, choose have disk and navigate to c:swsetupSp35558 and choose the file that it finds in that folder and install. It may give you a warning that it won't work (I tried so many different drivers I lost track), but install it anyway. Voila, sound on an Hp dv5000 Turion 64 laptop running Windows 7 64bit. It was instant success for me so I hope it works for you. Good luck.

On a little side note, I just wanted to add, I bypassed that vista realteks part of these instructions, if you want to try to skip that first I did and it worked fine, I got my sound back.

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
Just saw your edit.

Try following this advice:

www.sevenforums.com...

It seems there are issues with Soundmax drivers and Windows 7. This should correct your problem.

Please let me know if it does!

Coincidentally my work PC uses the same audio device.

This is the driver I am using and it works fine.

www.x-drivers.com...

Uninstall and reinstall drivers manually or you could run into problemos.

edit on 8-11-2011 by TinkerHaus because: (no reason given)

I've tried follow the instructions on that forum, but I'm not sure how to find out what drivers I actually should have installed. I've uninstalled the ones that Windows did automatically, but that's as far as I've got. I'm sure it's not a HD sound card though and to answer someone else's question there is no HDMI connection.

I tried running Belarc adviser which someone told me might say what sound card I have, but so far as I can tell it doesn't include that information.

Try to install the drivers from my earlier link..

www.x-drivers.com...

Don't let the "HD" part fool you - I'm certain this is the correct driver.

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
Try to install the drivers from my earlier link..

www.x-drivers.com...

Don't let the "HD" part fool you - I'm certain this is the correct driver.

edit on 8-11-2011 by TinkerHaus because: (no reason given)

Ok, I'll give this a go now and report back, thanks.

I had that sound problem also. My wife bought a new Toshiba Satellite Laptop with Windows 7 on it. The sound would only work from the headphones, not from the computer speakers. The Realtek wireless worked only part of the time, stronger when in the room with the modem, go outside it would lose all connections. My wife, like me, hates windows, so I went on a Linux hunt to find a Distro that would work everything. PCLinuxOS filled that bill nicely. EVERYTHING worked right out of the box. Sound is not great, thanks to Pulse Audio Module and drivers, and now she can get 50 feet away from the modem, and still have a strong connection.