Lost my sound, playback device no longer appears in sound control panel

[DaFees]

Dear LTT Forum,

 

I recently got some new-to-me parts, specifically an ASUS z170-a mobo, Intel Core i7-6700k, and 2x16gb of ddr4 memory. Everything was mostly working fine with one exception. I typically put ,y computer to sleep at night and will later the next day wake it up. Sometimes when I’d wake it up it wouldn’t detect my add-in WiFi card. Sometimes a restart would fix that other times I’d have to shut it down first. Last night was one such time.

Tired of the issues and having ready exhausted swap pcie slots I decided to see if I could update the bios! KEY POINT 1, I did update the bios as it was many updates outdated, relatively speaking.

 

Upon update and restart everything was fine, or so I thought. I suddenly wasn’t getting sound as expected. I use the built-in HDMI port to feed audio to my receiver that then feeds it either my surround system, or usually, the headphones I have nearby. It would tell me the device is in use or something but I couldn’t see where anything was using the device and certainly,wasn’t hearing anything [KEY POINT 2]. Well I tired the usual things I could think of.

Restarting the system, and uninstalling / reinstalling the Intel graphics (and audio) drivers

Well, getting frustrated I went into the device manager thinking I’d just disable the device (Intel display audio) [KEY POINT 3] and re-enable it. As I hit the disable button my computer hung, then rebooted, and now my receiver is no longer listed as a playback device in the sound control panel!

 

I again tried everything.

Uninstalling / Reinstalling the drivers Going into device manager, showing all hidden devices, and removing all listed instances of the Intel Display Audio device Booting into safe mode and using DDU to scrub (I think) all things Intel audio and graphics drivers. I’ve tried a full shutdown and reboot, nothing.

 

I am at my wit’s end, I got little sleep, and a, currently out of the house. I did try restoring to the only restore I had which is when I thought was before I lost the playback device in the sound control panel [KEY POINT 4] and that had no effect. Problem still persists. Before leaving I shutdown the PC, unplugged the hdmi cable and flipped the power switch on the PSU.

 

Before I updated the bios the audio worked flawlessly as I expected. I haven’t tried connecting the same hdmi cable into my GTX 1080 as I’d have to mess up my current nvidia surround configuration to do so and that was a headache I didn’t want to bring on unless necessary. Oh and before you ask, Intel Display Audio supports more frequencies and formats than NVIDIA does which is why I prefer. Also, I know I could just plug my headphones directly into the motherboard but my Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones benefit far more from the superior dac in my AVR than whatever my mobo has.

 

TL;DR

 

Updated bios to try and fix unrelated issue Audio (that worked flawlessly before) suddenly was not After uninstalling / reinstalling drivers and trying to disable / re-enable audio device in device manager my receiver that I connect to via hdmi out from my mobo no longer appears as a playback device in the Sound Control Panel.

 

Please help, and thank you! I will try any noted suggestions when I get home and have the chance. 

[KidKid]

52 minutes ago, DaFees said:

Dear LTT Forum,

 

I recently got some new-to-me parts, specifically an ASUS z170-a mobo, Intel Core i7-6700k, and 2x16gb of ddr4 memory. Everything was mostly working fine with one exception. I typically put ,y computer to sleep at night and will later the next day wake it up. Sometimes when I’d wake it up it wouldn’t detect my add-in WiFi card. Sometimes a restart would fix that other times I’d have to shut it down first. Last night was one such time.

Tired of the issues and having ready exhausted swap pcie slots I decided to see if I could update the bios! KEY POINT 1, I did update the bios as it was many updates outdated, relatively speaking.

 

Upon update and restart everything was fine, or so I thought. I suddenly wasn’t getting sound as expected. I use the built-in HDMI port to feed audio to my receiver that then feeds it either my surround system, or usually, the headphones I have nearby. It would tell me the device is in use or something but I couldn’t see where anything was using the device and certainly,wasn’t hearing anything [KEY POINT 2]. Well I tired the usual things I could think of.

Restarting the system, and uninstalling / reinstalling the Intel graphics (and audio) drivers

Well, getting frustrated I went into the device manager thinking I’d just disable the device (Intel display audio) [KEY POINT 3] and re-enable it. As I hit the disable button my computer hung, then rebooted, and now my receiver is no longer listed as a playback device in the sound control panel!

 

I again tried everything.

Uninstalling / Reinstalling the drivers Going into device manager, showing all hidden devices, and removing all listed instances of the Intel Display Audio device Booting into safe mode and using DDU to scrub (I think) all things Intel audio and graphics drivers. I’ve tried a full shutdown and reboot, nothing.

 

I am at my wit’s end, I got little sleep, and a, currently out of the house. I did try restoring to the only restore I had which is when I thought was before I lost the playback device in the sound control panel [KEY POINT 4] and that had no effect. Problem still persists. Before leaving I shutdown the PC, unplugged the hdmi cable and flipped the power switch on the PSU.

 

Before I updated the bios the audio worked flawlessly as I expected. I haven’t tried connecting the same hdmi cable into my GTX 1080 as I’d have to mess up my current nvidia surround configuration to do so and that was a headache I didn’t want to bring on unless necessary. Oh and before you ask, Intel Display Audio supports more frequencies and formats than NVIDIA does which is why I prefer. Also, I know I could just plug my headphones directly into the motherboard but my Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones benefit far more from the superior dac in my AVR than whatever my mobo has.

 

TL;DR

 

Updated bios to try and fix unrelated issue Audio (that worked flawlessly before) suddenly was not After uninstalling / reinstalling drivers and trying to disable / re-enable audio device in device manager my receiver that I connect to via hdmi out from my mobo no longer appears as a playback device in the Sound Control Panel.

 

Please help, and thank you! I will try any noted suggestions when I get home and have the chance. 

Sounds like a motherboard issue to me.

[DaFees]

2 minutes ago, KidKid said:

Sounds like a motherboard issue to me.

My suspicion is it either has to be mobo and / or software (Windows) related. If it is the mobo what are my options? Can I rollback to an older bios version? Or should I be considering more drastic options?

[strange13930]

2 hours ago, DaFees said:

My suspicion is it either has to be mobo and / or software (Windows) related. If it is the mobo what are my options? Can I rollback to an older bios version? Or should I be considering more drastic options?

you could try installing linux and see if you get sound.

[DaFees]

9 hours ago, strange13930 said:

you could try installing linux and see if you get sound.

Unless there is something about Linux I just don’t understand I was unable to produce sound in Linux. While I was in there though I was able to (without messing up my nvidia surround setup in Windows) move connections around and plug the hdmi cable going to my avr into my gtx 1080 and I could get sound out that way. 
 

So that establishes that the hdmi cable and avr do work as expected. Beyond that I did try rolling back my bios one revision and that did nothing to help solve my problem. 
 

So my options at this point would be to try debugging this further, (quit being so uptight about wanting 88.2/176.4 KHz audio frequency support and) use my gpu for audio / video output to my avr, consider a new motherboard, or consider more than just a new motherboard.

 

1. Would cause more sleepless nights and agony but potentially rewarding and free in the end.

2. My GPU currently has 2xHDMI (both occupied), 2xDP (free), and 1xDVI-D (occupied) that I connect my 3x1080p monitors to. These monitors all only accept DVI and VGA as inputs. Yes, they’re old, but the serve my needs. Anyway, I would need a recommendation for a DP to DVI adapter (active or passive? Does it matter?) that’ll just work and is ideally available on prime so I can have it here ASAP!

3. I’m not sure where and what I’d look for in a replacement mobo that wouldn’t end up having the same issues.

4. The costliest option for sure and I’m not ru,in it out but would prefer this as a last resort.

 

last thing to add is after further messing around I no longer can even get the Intel Display Audio to show up under “Sound, video and game controllers” in the device manager. Regardless though my PC can still see my AVR and pass video on to it, just not sound apparently. 

[DaFees]

UPDATE: After some further poking around staring at various error codes and messages and doing some googling I found a suggestion to power cycle the pc (as in uninstall a device that wasn’t working, shutdown, unplug the pc, hold the power button for a minute and then let it unplugged for another 5 or so) and then trying booting it up again. I could cry right now, manic tears mind you, because that actually worked. My PC’s sound is working perfectly again. 
 

All I can do now is go back to enjoying my PC and hope no further issues arise.