Sound not working? Having no audio coming out from your speakers? If you’re bugging by no sound problem on your PC, you may have tried Microsoft troubleshooter already.
If you’re seeing the notification saying “Audio is disabled” with a red X after it, the problem is very likely to be caused by audio driver.
Calm down, please. This is not a hard problem to solve actually. Read on and follow the easy-doing steps with images below.
Step 1: Make Sure You Have Enabled Audio Device
Step 2: Run Command Prompt
Step 3: Reinstall Audio Driver
Note: The images are shown in Windows 10, but all the fixes also suit for Windows 7.
Step 1: Make Sure You Have Enabled Audio Device
You need to check if you have enabled your audio device in Playback devices window and in Device Manager. Your audio device should not be disabled if it’s to work properly.
In Playback device
1) Right-click the sound icon at the button right corner and select
Playback devices.
2) In the new window, right-click the empty space and select
Show Disabled Devices. If
Show Disconnected Devices is not ticked, select as well.
3) You’ll see your playback device now. If your default playback device is greyed out and with a down arrow, you need to right-click it and choose
Enable.
In Device Manager
1) On your keyboard, press
Windows logo key and
X at the same time, and then choose
Device Manager.
2) Locate and expand category
Sound, video and game controllers to find your audio device driver. If you’re seeing a
down arrow as shown in the screen shot, then your audio device driver is disabled.
3) Right-click your audio device driver and choose
Enable device.
If your audio still does not come back, try the steps below.
Step 2: Run Command Prompt
1) On your keyboard, press
Windows logo key and
X at the same time and then choose
Command Prompt (Admin).
When prompted with
UAC, press
Yes to continue.
2) In the Command Prompt window, type in the following command:
net localgroup Administrators /add networkservice
net localgroup Administrators /add localservice
exit
You need to press Enter key after each of the command.
Try and see if your audio is back.
Step 3: Reinstall Audio Driver
To reinstall your audio driver, first you need to uninstall it and then reinstall the latest one.
1) On your keyboard, press
Windows logo key and
X at the same time and then choose
Device Manager.
2) Locate and expand
Sound, video and game controllers category. Then right click the audio driver you have and select
Uninstall device.
3) Press
Uninstall to confirm the process.
4) When the uninstall finishes, you may need to restart your computer so your system will find you the audio driver.
You can also choose to update your audio driver by identifying and downloading it form the internet. Just at the cost of certain amount of time.
If you don’t have the time, patience or computer skills to update your drivers manually, you can do it automatically with
Driver Easy.
Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to risk downloading and installing the wrong driver, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing.
You can update your drivers automatically with either the FREE or the Pro version of Driver Easy. But with the Pro version it takes just 2 clicks (and you get full support and a 30-day money back guarantee):
1)
Download and install Driver Easy.
2) Run Driver Easy and click
Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
3) Click the
Update button next to a flagged audio driver to automatically download and install the correct version of this driver (you can do this with the
FREE version).
Or click
Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system (this requires the
Pro version – you’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click
Update All).
