No volume slider in task bar when clicked - just black

Hi,

slightly odd thing has occurred on my Win7 64bit install that has been stable for years. Obviously an update or install has done some damage but I am having trouble tracking down which one.

Symptom

When I click the standard windows taskbar volume notification to see what the current volume is set or change it using the slider I get a small window appear in the right location about the right size but completely black in contents, and clicking on it does nothing.

If I use the Realtek HD notification manager icon it works. I can live with it but something has gone wrong.

Recent history

I did have to do a debug on my windows IE which was crashing when any page loaded that had any FLASH content, I removed flash and all returned to normal, BUT, it was about this time that I noticed some odd things the volume being one of them, the other is that my STEAM client no longer plays video content (possible using the FLASH engine).

Help / Advice needed please.

Hello,

A few weeks ago I first noticed that my volume notification screen was black, same symptom as Andy001z described.
When hovering over the volume notification icon on the task bar, I get a small window saying " : 20%". The percentage seems to follow the volume level (which I am adjusting using the keyboard for now). The blank before the : seems to suggest that Windows is not detecting the device properly?

I can't remember having installed new software during the past few months, except for the automatic Windows Updates. I do not know, however, when this black notification thing started occurring as I do not frequently change the volume.

I tried the refresh suggested by fireberd, but this didn't solve the problem.

Andy001z, did you manage to find the cause and solve the issue? Are there any other suggestions to try?

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on a HP Pavilion dv7-4095eb (Intel Core i7-720QM, 8 GB RAM). My sound card is, according to the device manager, an ATI High Definition Audio Device.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

For your information...

I had tried to solve this issue by updating the sound card drivers. Unfortunatly this did not help.

Getting a little desperate , I tried to solve it by updating again today. I downloaded the latest sound card drivers from the HP website as I did previously. This time, however, this seems to have resolved the problem.

I still do not know what caused the problem, but I'm happy that it is fixed!
Another proof that drivers should always be checked...