Inspiron 7547 audio suddenly quit working completely

Hi Dell community,

I am not sure exactly when it happened, but my sound has quit working altogether. I was watching some Youtube videos as normal which I paused and went to resume watching later on Sept 22 or so, but suddenly no audio would come through at all. Since Windows 8.1 requires a lot of tinkering to get basic functions working (wireless card, touchpad, Flash, Windows defender, various other driver problems) I figured I could get it working eventually...but, no luck.

Note that the device manager and audio settings all say that everything is working correctly. I have tried everything you typically would: System restore, hard reboot, updated drivers, rolled back drivers, plugged in external speakers, plugged in headphones, disabled audio output from the device manager and did a hard reboot, restored device settings to default, restored settings to default from the Dell Audio menu in the control panel, ran the troubleshooter, followed every step the troubleshooter tells you to check, etc. I even upgraded to Windows 10 hoping that might help, but no change.

And no, the audio output isn't muted. :emotion-4:

Is there anything else I could try? Would a complete, clean reinstallation of Windows 8 (or 10)  fix it? I don't want to do that since it was such a pain to configure properly in the first place, but if it's necessary then so be it. This is very frustrating and I wanted to be absolutely sure I have attempted everything. I don't mind taking it for repairs if it is some kind of mechanical issue, but this comp is fairly new and I spent a lot of money on it, and have had nothing but problems. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

-Noc