Question No sound. Troubleshooting indicates maybe a Mobo problem?

[PossibLeigh]

Hello,

This evening, whilst playing a game, the sound through my speakers suddenly cut out with a quiet, short glitch sound and I've not been able to get it back. No app involving sound will send sound out through my speakers.

I've done some troubleshooting and am thinking this may be a problem with the motherboard's onboard realtek sound card, but how can I be sure?

Things I have done:

Checked the Sounds setting with music playing. Windows recognises sound being played, but no actual sonic output.

Used the MS Get Help app to look for solutions and submitt a comment (are they not called tickets anymore?)

Used the audio troubleshooter on Windows.

Checked Device Manager. No yellow arrows or anything untoward.

Tested my speakers by plugging them into my phone. Yep, they work.

Connecting my Bluetooth headphones to the PC. That works. All sounds come through to the headphones.

Restoring my PC to a time several days ago. Makes no difference.

Uninstalled the realtek device and rebooted so Windows reloaded the drivers. Nada.

Downloaded the latest drivers from Realtek. Unzipped and used the exe to update the drivers. The wizard uninstalls the device, reboots the computer, starts up again to reinstall the drivers and then gives an error message that there are no drivers available in the package, or words to that effect (wtf?!), Meaning the realtek audio device doesn't even show in device manager.

Restored my OC to before the last action and tried to update the drivers manually through DM using the same downloaded zip file from Realtek, but there are so many files in that zip (seriously, there must be nearly a hundred files in there nested into various subfolders) that I have no idea which one is the actual driver.

Checked my BIOS, but all that tells me is that the HD Audio Controller is on, there's no way of checking the components health that I can see. I've tried turning it off and rebooting, but to no avail.

So, what would you say are my options for determining if this is a mobo problem? Short of buying a new mobo? And if it is, how come Bluetooth sound still works? I guess it could also be a problem with the jack on the board?

I'm on Win 11 and the mobo is an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus (MS-7C37).

Any comments will be gratefully received! Sorry for the long post, but wanted to give all the details.

 

[Ralston18]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for any error codes, warnings, or informational events just before or at the time of the "glitch sound".

Start with Reliability History. Much more user friendly.

Event Viewer:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

Another place to look is Update History. Check for any failed or problem updates.

In Windows also try "sfc /scannow" and "dism".

FYI:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-sfc-scannow-to-repair-windows-system-files-2626161

How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image | Windows Central

 

[PossibLeigh]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for any error codes, warnings, or informational events just before or at the time of the "glitch sound".

Start with Reliability History. Much more user friendly.

Event Viewer:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

Another place to look is Update History. Check for any failed or problem updates.

In Windows also try "sfc /scannow" and "dism".

FYI:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-sfc-scannow-to-repair-windows-system-files-2626161

How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image | Windows Central

Hi Ralston,

Many thanks for the suggestions.

Reliability History doesn't throw up anythng relevant or of note I don't think. IAStordatasvc (Intel rapid storage) stopped working around the time, but that's always stopping working, and there was a MS update for Defender, but that's it. Event viewer also doesn't show anything more untoward than usual.

Update history shows there was an update for Net.core yesterday, but I believe that was about 4 hours before the sound disappeared.

DISM found no issues and sfc /scannow found corrcupt files and repaired them, but no change.

I thnk the only thing left for me to try is to do a wipe and re-install Windows.

 

[Ralston18]

A four hour "delay" does not surprise me. An update may work well for while and then some combination of apps, services, etc. simply breaks things.

Before doing a wipe and reinstall, uninstall Intel Rapid Storage for a few days. You may not even need Intel Rapid Storage.

FYI:

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/how-to-fix-iastordatasvc-high-cpu-usage-on-windows-10/

Look for other similar links and delve into things a bit more. Could be something trivial to fix.

As for a wipe and reinstall:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/windows-10-clean-install-tutorial.3170366

Do be sure to verify that all important data is backed up at least 2 x to locations off of the computer to be wiped and reinstalled. Verify that the backups are recoverable and readable.

 

[Lewisdall121]

I understand you, it irritates me the most when I take my PC to repair I propose cleaning it, because it could solve the problem, but I'm sure it's not the problem because it is cold.

 

[PossibLeigh]

Hi Ralston,

Thanks again for your response.

I did some research into ISRT as you suggested and decided I can live without it. I have two SSDs and one HDD in my system, but the HDD is rarely used as it's just archival media storage and neither of the SSDs are Intel. So I uninstalled ISRT, rebooted my PC and the sound output has returned. Very, very odd. Not sure if it was uninstalling ISRT or if thats a coincidence, but either wayI'm happy for now!

Many thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Regards

Leigh