No Audio Output in Vista
Not getting any sound? First be sure that your audio playback device is properly installed by right clicking on the volume icon (by default this is found at the bottom right by the time in the notification area). Select “Playback Devices” and you should see a list of valid output devices. You may have only one, but you should have at least one. You should see a little green circle with a checkmark and a status of “Working” following the description of the device.
If you do not see any devices, you’ll need to install one. This is normally a driver issue, so installing the proper driver should do the trick. You can also check out the “Device Manager” by pressing the “Start orb” and typing “Device Manager” in the search box, if it is on top you can hit enter– otherwise click it from the search results to start it up. If you see any question mark icons in this tree, they indicate hardware problems. For sound to work, you should see at least one sound device under “Sound, video and game controllers” such as “High Definition Audio Device”. If you double-click on it you should see the device status as “This device is working properly.”
At this stage we will assume you have a working audio device and you are facing a configuration issue of some kind. There are a couple of possibilities worth discussing…
1) The volume for the application is too low or muted.
First start the application with which you are having audio issues. In Vista, audio can be adjusted on a per application basis. So take a look at the volume mixer by clicking the volume icon at the bottom left of your screen in the notification area (by the time) and clicking the “mixer” link. Here you should see the volume settings for running applications. When muted, you’ll see the little circle with a line through it icon in the volume button at the bottom of the slider control and it may be “blacked out” to further show it is not on. Clicking the volume button at the bottom of each slider flips the application between mute on and off. Ensure the volume is set appropriately for the application in question.
2) The volume is routed to another playback device.
If you have more than one playback device, the volume might be going to the wrong one. You should see activity in the Sound Playback tab where we looked at the available playback devices earlier– there is a live level indicator here. If you see that the wrong device is getting the output from your application, select the desired playback device and press “Set Default” to change it. This default actually applies to any running applications, so it can get confusing when some applications have one default playback devices and others are set to something else. Just keep in mind that when you set the default playback device it will apply to the list of running applications you see in the mixer and not to any others that may already have a different device set as default.
Tags: audio, audio_device, audio_issues, audio_playback, Computer, device_manager, Drivers, Hardware, output_devices, playback_device, volume_settings, windows vista
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Mr Mr on 04 Aug 2007 at 8:09 am #
Well did you think of that all by yourself? What a total load of useless gibberish.
I am sure that if you don’t know whether or not you have a soundcard installed you would not understand the rest of this tripe because it would be way over your head.
Mike on 06 Aug 2007 at 3:18 pm #
The biggest problem with Vista over XP, is that there is NO control over how to route the sound through your sound card. Vista will be totally useless for people trying to configure a recording setup where they would like to preview the what they are recording which was done in 3 clicks in XP and TOTALLY impossible in vista. If you use any Windows operating system to record live and preview it, DON’T UPGRADE TO VISTA!!! And if you can pay for it, just go with a console like Pro Tools.
Adan on 09 Oct 2007 at 4:09 pm #
My sound device is sucessfully installed and i still have an “X” on my Speaker Icon on my start menu and when i click play back devices my speaker has a little arrows in red pointing down what does that mean
peter bruckner on 11 Aug 2008 at 9:44 am #
audio output in ..windows vista ultimate..is not a problem…download..C-Media Ac 97 Audio Device..and update the driver..u will have the sound.
kamal priya on 28 May 2009 at 8:21 pm #
hi, my audio device is not running .i connected my speakers after shutting down and restarting i found my audio device is not running. i’m using dell inspiron 1525 ,windows vista. in my play back device i found no device have been found. pls help me to resolve my problem
Melissa on 20 Jul 2009 at 11:31 am #
Thanks for this. I deleted my audio device like a retard, and couldn’t figure out how to redownload. very helpful!
charles on 31 Jul 2009 at 7:08 pm #
my sound output was changed somehow to my independent dual headphones (IDT) jacks and i dont know how to change it back to the default sound player and its really irritating