XPS Sound Issue

Question

Hi

I'm sorry to repost what seems to have been a very similar issue in other threads, but they all seem to get resolved in ways that do not relate to my apparent problem.

I have a DELL XPS Laptop 64bit running windows 7 professional, that is showing the "red x of death" over the speaker at lower right, and I cannot seem to get sound back on my system.

This was intermittent originally, but now sound seems to have left for good - this was certainly made worse by some of my steps to remove and install a more recent driver... that's when it stopped working altogether.

I've run BIOS-level boot diagnostics and confirmed (and heard) sound coming from my speakers, headphones, etc. in those tests.

I've also run the dell downloadable diagnostics and found no problems.

I've also followed various steps on the dell support site to uninstall and reinstall drivers from the dell site for my system.

I've heard that "windows updates can break sound in ways that require windows to be reinstalled"... that sounds horribly ominious and I"m really hoping that is not necessary.

I've tried my old drivers from my original install DVD and older versions of drivers on the dell site.

Happy to post images/specs, etc, as necessary.. let me know what else is needed.

I feel certain this is not an isolated problem.

Thank you!

Jeff

Risco · Answer

Go the device manager and find your audio device. Right click it and choose uninstall, then click the tickbox to delete driver. Reboot, then reinstall the drivers.

yatesjdy · Answer

Hi Risco:

I have definitely done that, and I've reinstalled multiple versions of the drivers (old and new) from the DELL site.

I can confirm that all DELL diagnostics (from the downloaded DELL diagnostics tool) pass.

I can also confirm that the BIOS-level audio tests pass (and in those bios level audio tests I can clear hear sound coming from speakers and from headphones... so I would not think this is a hardware issue... also all other BIOS level tests pass except for a DVD issue that is known).

I can also see from checking the Sound Speaker properties that the Realtek High Def Audio controller is reported as "This Device is Working Normally", where the Driver date is 12/13/2011 version 6.0.1.6526. (I've also reinstalled all DELL-available versions of older drivers for Audio as well and confirmed they also "work normally" per this dialog... but no sounds comes from my system.).

I've downloaded and followed the DELL-posted FAQ for audio resolution steps, including to check services.msc (windows audio and windows audio EndPoint Builder appear to be running fine and have the proper settings).

I've also run msinfo32 and checked status on all hardware resources (which show OK), and Components->Sound Devices all appear to be OK, and have checked Multi-media Audio codecs (which show OK). Checking System Drivers per the msinfo32 tool, there are many drivers that are started and many that are stopped... I see a few seemingly "audio" related System drivers that say "No" in the ""Started" column... honestly not sure if this stuff is relevant, but here's what is stopped that seems audio related: (1) drmkaud Microsoft Trusted Audio Drivers (start mode is manual and status is OK, so perhaps this is ok?), (2) usbaudio USB Audio Driver (WDM). BUT - various other sound services ARE running fine according to msinfo32, including hdaudaddservice Microsoft 1.1 UAA Function Driver for High Definition Audio Service, hdaudbus Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio, intcazaudaddservice Service for Realtek HD Audio (WDM), nvhda Service for NVIDIAI High Definition Audio Driver.

I will try you suggestion above again though, and let you know if that addresses the problem (just in case something has changed. I'll update shortly.

Thank you for your help.

jeff

unununium · Answer

Unsure how to fix your problem but just to let you know...i only have one instance of "RealTek High Definition Audio Device" in Device Manager @ location 0. The other entry is Bluetooth Audio Device but this is for my Mobile Phone.

Unsure why you would have 2 instances of the HD Audio Device???????

Maybe delete the one for location 3...reboot...and see if system tries to reinstall it

yatesjdy · Answer

Ok I've followed Risco's suggestions above (thank you).

Still no sound.

I removed and deleted the realtek driver as requested, and on reboot the drivers were presumably picked up from the microsoft driver-finder service (?), and so now I have these drivers:

Device Manager->Sound, video, and game controllers->High Definition Audio Device->properties:

General Tab = "This device is working properly",

Driver Tab = Microsoft, Driver date = 11/19/2010, Driver version 6.1.7601.17514

Driver Details = lists 6 different drivers from windows/system32 folder.

I am clear that there are different places to get drivers from and I believe I have installed all of them from microsoft (as in this step) and from Dell, and I've also downloaded directly from realtek.

Per this above, I should point out that in my Device Manager listing for drivers under Sound, video, etc, I DO have 2 "High Definition Audio Device" entries... one shows up for "location 0" and the other shows up for "location 3".

Anyone know what the purpose of both of these locations is, and if that has anything to do with my problem?

Thanks again for your insights.

Jeff

unununium · Answer

Just want to add...if you right click on your speaker icon in taskbar(the one with the red cross on), what options do you see in the sub menu? Do you have 'Playback Devices'? If so click on it....is the RealTek HD Audio Device the default playback device? Is it enabled? If not, can you enable it?

Jim Coates · Answer

Did you check 'show disabled devices' as per the thread you linked to? The mic might have become faulty. Edit: Sorry, posted in the wrong thread.

Jim Coates · Answer

Per this above, I should point out that in my Device Manager listing for drivers under Sound, video, etc, I DO have 2 "High Definition Audio Device" entries... one shows up for "location 0" and the other shows up for "location 3".

Anyone know what the purpose of both of these locations is, and if that has anything to do with my problem?

I believe that one of them is the driver for HDMI audio which is part of the graphics card driver, unrelated to the regular audio. If the name is "Audio device on high definition audio bus" then it is the Intel HDMI driver. If a different name then it might be an nVidia, I'm not sure.

sinathi · Answer

I had the similar issue and this is how I resolved it, Right click on speaker icon with red cross on it on the task bar, click on playback devices, a pop up window will open with playback tab, you will see all the devices listed, right click inside the window and outside any of the devices listed, click on show disabled devices, it will list Speakers/Headphones, right click on that device and enable, that fixed the issue.  Have a great day.

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XPS Sound Issue

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