Windows 7: No Audio Output Device is installed.

Hey guys,
Ive looking all over the net on how to fix this problem but no luck yet after trying possibly everything. Basically the other after i booted up my computer i had no sound at all and on the bottom right hand corner there is a speaker with a X through it saying No Audio Output device is installed. So first i intalled new drivers (windows 7 Comaptible) and still nothing. There is nothing in device manager that needs a driver and "Under the Sound, Video and game controllers" Tab it just has "Unsupported Standard Game Port". I am using the onboard sound card on my motherboard which is a Gigabyte GA-81E. I have only recently upgraded to Windows 7 Home premium for windows XP though the sound was working perfectly intially it was only till one day i booted it up and stoped working. Any ideas?

Any assitance would be greatly appreciated.

Did you check to see if the Audio Controller is enabled in the BIOS?

Hey,
The only thing i found related to audio in BIOS was "ac97 Audio" and that was turned on [Auto], the other option being [Disabled].

In DM, do you see your onboard card displayed. If yes, right click on it, disable and then enable. I encountered this issue umpteen times when I first installed Win 7. After few weeks, through WU, updated the driver and now everythn works fine.

Hey thanks for the advice, but unfortunately i dont see it anywhere

In that case, disable and enable the card thru BIOS. Lets c, if Win 7 recognizes it. Atleast, during this process Win 7 should react.

Hey mate unfortunately i enabled and disabled ac 97 audio in BIOS and windows 7 did not react. Nothing changed at all. This is very unusal and i have run out of options.... unless the soundcard on the motherboard is no longer functional or something

I sense the same. Do u have any other OS installed with Win 7?

No. Previously i used Win Xp which is has put into Windows.old file. Do you think it would be worth buying a new sound card?

Its according to your preference and the speaker setup you have.

But before investing on a sound card, you can try to install some other OS and check if the real culprit is the card or Win 7. Or you can try some Live OS, but not sure the sound works in these type of OS.