Losing audio is frustrating, but in most cases the culprit is a setting rather than a hardware fault. Work through these steps in order and you will almost certainly restore sound without any specialist tools.

Start With the Obvious

Check the physical volume. If you use external speakers, confirm the power light is on and the volume knob is turned up. Plug in a pair of headphones to rule out a speaker fault — if you hear sound through the headphones, the speakers themselves are the problem, not Windows.

Check Windows Volume Settings

  1. Look at the speaker icon in the system tray (bottom-right). If it shows a red circle with an X, click it and drag the slider up.
  2. Right-click the speaker icon and choose Open Volume Mixer. Make sure the app you are trying to hear (browser, media player, etc.) is not muted or set to zero.
  3. Right-click the speaker icon again and select Sounds. On the Playback tab, check that the correct device is set as the default. If you see your speakers greyed out, right-click them and choose Enable.

Run the Audio Troubleshooter

Press Win + I to open Settings, then go to System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters and run Playing Audio. Windows will often detect and fix the problem automatically.

Update or Reinstall the Audio Driver

Open Device Manager (right-click the Start button), expand Sound, video and game controllers, right-click your audio device, and choose Update driver. If that does not help, choose Uninstall device, restart your PC, and let Windows reinstall the driver fresh.

Check the Audio Service

Press Win + R, type services.msc, and press Enter. Find Windows Audio, double-click it, and confirm its status is Running and the startup type is Automatic. If it is stopped, click Start.

If none of the above works, ask us and we can dig deeper.