Strange problem with sound

[HarryTri]

I have a very strange problem with my laptop (Lenovo G500, Windows 8). Some time - about 5 minutes - after booting the sound is disappearing suddenly. This is joined with problems like Windows Media Player reporting inability to play any sound files and Internet Explorer 10 being unable to play YouTube videos (but Mozilla Firefox can - without sound of course). All this are reverted with a reboot and then it happens just the same. A little search in the web revealed that other people also have the same problem even with Windows 7 but I didn't find a solution. The weird thing is that the Windows sound service and the related services are working and all the devices in the Device Manager are reported to be alright and there is no error message in any of the Windows event logs. The lack of sound affects both the speakers and the headphones I used to test. The sound device is Conexant SmartAudio HD and there is also Dolby Advanced Audio. Any thoughts anyone?

[NoelC]

Sorry to hear that - I listen to music all the time while working and it would be irritating to lose it.

 

Can't say I've had that happen, so anything I say is necessarily on the iffy side of SWAG...

 

Have you looked for an updated driver for the Conexant hardware?

 

Seems to me I ran across a post on the Microsoft forums some months ago where someone was having this problem, and they ultimately said that running through some part of the sound setup or audio mixer and actually changing a setting then changing it back re-wrote something in the registry that just fixed it.  But I don't remember the specifics of what they said they did.  I'm sure you've been through all the setup functions.

 

Best of luck.

 

-Noel

[HarryTri]

Thanks for the reply. I tried to troubleshoot the problem by watching the sound function and checking what is writen in the event logs at the time that it disappears and l ended up disabling the Lenovo Security Center service, this seems to make the difference as far as I don't open Lenovo Security Center (version 2.4.003) itself. I hope that this is really the cause, you can much more easier copy with a problem if you know what causes it.

 

No, it wasn't... either. Noel, if you remember something more about what you red please tell me.

Edited July 12, 2014 by HarryTri

[HarryTri]

I found it! \Microsoft\Windows\Multimedia\SystemSoundsService in Task Scheduler. I stopped it and the sound came back immediately!. I deactivated it of course...

[Soukyuu]

That sounds similar to some old Creative cards problems where you had to deactivate their sound helper service to actually have sound. Computers work in mysterious ways...

[MagicAndre1981]

I always disable this Task because I never use any system sounds. I hate all those sounds.

[HarryTri]

The sound disappeared again... It was the only time that the sound came back without a reboot and it seems that it was a weird coincidence. I run a system diagnostic and it says that everything is all right... I don't know what to think of anymore.

[NoelC]

I always disable this Task because I never use any system sounds. I hate all those sounds.

 

To each his own.  My system emits an excited "Huh?" when it pops up a question, "Whoa" for an exclamation, "Pop" for an informational, "Oops" for a critical stop.  Wakes you right up at 2:30 in the afternoon when you'd rather be napping. 

 

-Noel

[HarryTri]

Well, everything seems to be a driver issue. As I found in the web a lot of people have this problem not only with Conexant but with Realtek high definition audio devices too. In all the cases - including mine and that's what I ended up to - installing the Windows generic drives for high definition audio solves the problem. A conflict of the OEM drives with a Windows Update or something else (thought I uninstalled most of my programs trying to find a cause of the problem to no avail), who knows? Anyway at least there is a working alternative/solution at least.