Steam causes problems in Windows Audio Service

mattdp · 08 Aug 2013

Hi,

Audio output on my laptop functions normally most of the time. However, often when I play a game on Steam when I *finish* playing and close the game, I discover that the audio is no longer functioning. Other games have no soundtrack and windows media player tells me it's unable to play mp3 files.

Oddly, system sounds - mouse clicks and the like - still seem to work.

I have discovered that restarting the Windows Audio and Windows Audio Endpoint Build services seems to fix this problem for most applications. But not for Steam - any games run through Steam continue to either be silent or to error with sound-based issues.

I've got some sort of Realtek High Definition Audio sound card, but I'm not certain what model. As best I can tell I have the latest drivers - the "update drivers" button in Windows Sound manager is grayed out.

The apparent inconsistency of this behaviour has got me stumped and it's getting tiresome having to reboot every time I want to play a game. Any ideas gratefully received.

Faladu · 10 Aug 2013

Realtek is the standard motherboard sound chip manufacturer.

Visit asus.com for an updated driver for your specific laptop.

Make note in the specifications what chipset it is, something like Realtek ALC-8xx or similar.

cpu-z, msinfo32.exe and speccy did not give this specific detail in plain view when I looked, I know what mine is though. [apps used to provide system details]

Otherwise, I would look at Steam forums, you can't be the only one among millions to have this issue.

Steam's own generic online support didn't give me an answer, I looked.

mattdp · 12 Aug 2013

Thanks for the suggestion. I updated the drivers but, annoyingly, I now have no speaker sound at all. Oddly, headphones plugged in still function fine. But the on-board speakers (it's a laptop) do not.

Any suggestions on how to restore my sound output, ideally with the updated drivers in place, deeply welcomed.