# "No audio output device is installed" MY FUCKING ASS.



## Icen (Mar 12, 2010)

Alright. I've had my Windows Vista (via laptop) for about 3-4 years now.

Just this morning it's telling me I have no sound, that "no audio output device is installed". (At the lower right-hand corner where the sound icon is, there is a little white x in a red circle.) I turned it on earlier this morning, and the sound was FINE then, and the sound was fine yesterday. I did do a mandatory update on my computer yesterday but the sound was still working.

I apparently have "RealTek High Definition Audio" for my sound but for some reason it isn't working and it's really frustrating me.

How do I get my sound to work again??

Edit: To avoid confusion. MY COMPUTER IS NOT ON MUTE. It is TELLING me I have NO sound, so I cannot mute sound that is not there!!


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## xcliber (Mar 12, 2010)

Have you tried rolling back the audio drivers? You may have downloaded a driver update along with the normal Windows updates.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 12, 2010)

One of two things has happened: Either Windows has screwed up the driver and/or its ability to talk to the hardware (which isn't unheard of), or the audio hardware has actually failed.

To try and figure out which, grab a LiveCD of a popular Linux distro like Mint or Ubuntu and boot the system up on that.  If the audio is working, then you know the problem rests with Vista.  If it's not working there either, you might have blown audio hardware. (I would suggest Mint over Ubuntu just because it will support Flash and MP3 playback off the CD).

If the problem is Vista-related, then I would suggest uninstalling the sound card drivers.  As with most windows uninstalls, Windows itself will do a pretty poor job of actually uninstalling anything, so it's likely you'll have to reboot it into safe mode, delete the directory containing the audio drivers as well as any of the files it may have copied to /Windows/system32, then do a registry scrub to get rid of all the orphaned registry entries (Windows doesn't do very well at cleaning up the registry on its own either).

Reboot into normal mode after that and reinstall the sound drivers.


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## net-cat (Mar 12, 2010)

Do what ToeClaws said.

Install the latest RealTek Drivers.

(If the direct link doesn't work, download the "Vista, Windows7 Driver(32/64 bits) Driver only (Executable file)" from here.)


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## xcliber (Mar 12, 2010)

net-cat said:


> Do what ToeClaws said.


 
Granted Toeclaw's solution would be more thurough, why not try the simple solution first? (ie. Is there something wrong with my idea?)


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## net-cat (Mar 12, 2010)

Nothing inherently wrong. Until you run Windows Update and it installs it again...


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## xcliber (Mar 12, 2010)

Uncheck/hide that update afterwards, to prevent it from installing it again.


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## ArielMT (Mar 31, 2010)

Sorry, just re-bumping to note the post I deleted.  The first link looked okay, though useless, but all the links beyond were either dubious or malicious.


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## furatail (Mar 31, 2010)

I guess if this is fixed you should say so and maybe someone could close.


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