Question No speakers or headphones are plugged in...

[pratss]

So I have this problem for awhile, for which I tried to find lots of fixes online. From downloading audio drivers to adding legacy software in device manager, I have tried all of it to fix the problem. The latter actually forced me to format my whole PC, which is ok. After formatting the PC, the audio worked normally until I tried updating my drivers to latest drivers. At which point, I had to restart PC and I was back to point zero. Please help me out here.
Things that I have tried so far-
1)Rolling back those driver updates.
2)Downloading audio drivers from motherboard vendor website( Gigabyte H61m-S1 rev 3.0).
3)Downloading audio drivers manually.
(In either of those cases^ device manager didn't show "Realtek high definition audio" nor can I find realtek audio manager anywhere on my PC even after successful installation. Also, the audio option on task bar has a red cross on it, and if I do right click on it, it doesn't show the "sounds" option, the one that has playback, recording etc).
4)Adding legacy software for realtek (This ended up with blue window).
5)Downloading driver booster and letting it solve the problem(it obviously didn't).
6)Trying my headphones on other devices. (the fact that audio worked for awhile after formatting kinda tells that it isn't hardware issue).
7)Uninstalling default drivers and letting windows download the drivers on their own.
8)Installing old drivers that my motherboard supported(although wasn't supported by windows 10, but me being desperate to solve this tried that anyway, obviously didn't work).
9)Disabling audio driver,rebooting PC and enabling audio driver again.
10)sfc and DISM scan
11)Setting "windows audio" in services to automatic and restarting.
12)Deleting "upperlimit" in registry.

I would really appreciate it if someone can help me out here, as I spent my whole day trying to figure out solution but to no avail.
btw, my OS is windows 10.

 

[efontyn]

Hello, please be careful when downloading third party software like "Driver Booster" as these programs can potentially flood your system with potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) and may do you more harm than good. It is always best to check official servers for drivers.

You said that device manager did not find Realtek HD Audio Manager, but that may be due to a compatibility issue or that the device may be hidden. Make sure that you have the up to date version.

Sounds like to me that its a driver issue, which can be very tedious to figure out as I am dealing with one as well. I would say that you start by reinstalling your chipset drivers. Your motherboard requires the H61 Chipset and can be downloaded here from GIGABYTE's site. Make sure that you select Windows 10 64 bit when looking for the correct drivers.
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-H61M-S1-rev-30/support#support-dl-driver-chipset

 

[pratss]

Hello, please be careful when downloading third party software like "Driver Booster" as these programs can potentially flood your system with potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) and may do you more harm than good. It is always best to check official servers for drivers.

You said that device manager did not find Realtek HD Audio Manager, but that may be due to a compatibility issue or that the device may be hidden. Make sure that you have the up to date version.

Sounds like to me that its a driver issue, which can be very tedious to figure out as I am dealing with one as well. I would say that you start by reinstalling your chipset drivers. Your motherboard requires the H61 Chipset and can be downloaded here from GIGABYTE's site. Make sure that you select Windows 10 64 bit when looking for the correct drivers.
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-H61M-S1-rev-30/support#support-dl-driver-chipset

Thanks for your reply, and also your advice about Driver booster, I would be more careful next time.
I did try installing chipset and IME drivers after your reply. After their installation was completed, I got back to installing realtek audio drivers from motherboard's site itself. It didn't work. I then saw a youtube video about adding hardware legacy, and did it again this time(but didn't do "Have disk", this time. I just let windows do it's thing), and to my surprise my audio started again. I was able to see realtek in device manager. But as I restarted my PC, everything went back to way it was. I don't see realtek in device manager again, and the sound has red cross with "No speakers or headphones are plugged in" error. I tried repeating everything that I did, but this time it is not having any effect.

 

[efontyn]

Ah I understand. It can be tempting when you're out of options to download programs like that, understandable.

Try and see if you can get realtek to be recognized again, but before restarting, try and set it as the default device. Sometimes windows installs drivers over the previous ones which can cause incompatibility if there are conflicting drivers.

I'm sure you've already done this but look into scanning your registry for errors, this can correct any bad files that may be causing you files.
See this link for a tutorial of how to scan your registry.

View: https://youtu.be/iPa74OPUhAI

 

[pratss]

Ah I understand. It can be tempting when you're out of options to download programs like that, understandable.

Try and see if you can get realtek to be recognized again, but before restarting, try and set it as the default device. Sometimes windows installs drivers over the previous ones which can cause incompatibility if there are conflicting drivers.

I'm sure you've already done this but look into scanning your registry for errors, this can correct any bad files that may be causing you files.
See this link for a tutorial of how to scan your registry.

View: https://youtu.be/iPa74OPUhAI

No thanks, I hadn't tried it already. This is what it said-

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

The CBS.log file is very huge, and I don't know how to attach text file here.

Edit- correcting spelling mistake

 

[efontyn]

No thanks, I hadn't tried it already. This is what it said-

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

The CBS.log file is very huge, and I don't know how to attack text file here.

This is common to see, and unfortunately this doesn't give us many answers.

If possible, you should be able to sift through the document to find what it was unable to fix and should list the program the file is associated with. Commonly, some of the programs you see can seem like they have no correlation but this isn't always the case.

List the names of any programs you see that have repeated errors.

 

[pratss]

This is common to see, and unfortunately this doesn't give us many answers.

If possible, you should be able to sift through the document to find what it was unable to fix and should list the program the file is associated with. Commonly, some of the programs you see can seem like they have no correlation but this isn't always the case.

List the names of any programs you see that have repeated errors.

It mostly talks about windows defender. I don't see any audio related entry.
But, So I actually tried installing old realtek drivers(which didn't work), and didn't added any entry in device manager either. So I did "add hardware legacy" and tried making an entry for those old drivers, and that installation went successfully. It said "Realtek has been installed successfully, it may not work as expected. Code 10). It added an entry for realtek in device manager, but with a yellow triangle. Audio still didn't work and had red cross. I restarted my PC, and audio was working for like 2 minutes( in which I checked my device manager, this time it had 2 entries for realtek, one with yellow triangle, and other working normally). But all of a sudden, in blink of an eye, everything went back to way that it was. I didn't do anything. Audio had red cross over it again.
I tried updating drivers(from device manager entries), but to no avail.

 

[rgd1101]

[SOLVED] - Possibly windows 10 update caused an issue that I can't solve

So guys, I had posted a thread in 'motherboard' category- https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/no-speakers-or-headphones-are-plugged-in.3523513/ as it was related to drivers, but my research online has led me to believe that it's most probably due to windows 10 update. So I'm going ahead...

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