Sound from some programs, no sound from others

I have speakers attached to the 3.5mm jack on the rear panel of my PC. No other sound devices are attached.

[EDIT: I can't figure out how to get google photos links to display inline]

In Device Manager, I see two sound cards:



In Control Panel -> Sound I see this:



The properties for the "not plugged in" devices all give Jack Information as "HDMI Digital Jack." Nothing is plugged into the HDMI jack.

Here's the problem:

If I play an mp3 file in Windows Media player, there's no sound. I get an error message:



If I try to play the same mp3 in VLC, there's no sound.

I get sound in from the following: iTunes, audio and video in the browser, and all system sounds.

Is the problem that VLC and Windows Media Player are somehow trying to send sound to the AMD audio? If so, how do I tell them to use Realtek audio so I get sound from the speakers?

Windows media player should be using the one selected in windows. For VLC though go to tools/preferences and pick audio then Wave out and select the device you want. For WMP hit alt then tools/options and under devices go to the properties of speakers and pick your device.

"Normally" the Default "Recording" device is set to Stereo Mix (could be labeled System Mixer on some older systems), or if you are using Creative SoundBlaster they call it "What You Hear". Most programs will default to that with options for other recording sources.

"Speakers" (PC sound card) should be set as default Playback Device.

In Device Manager, if you have a video card with an HDMI option, you will see the entry for the HDMI Audio and also one entry for the PC sound card driver, such as Realtek, Conexant, etc. If you only see "High Definition Audio" that is the generic, basic function, Windows installed sound driver and if that is the case you need to install the correct hardware sound driver (which may fix your problems).

Here is my Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Sound Panel, Recording Tab section, which is common on many systems.

Stereo Mix is used as the default audio source for many programs. Its basically "what you are hearing on the speakers". Its sort of a misnomer to call it a "Recording" device. If you wanted to record audio from the Internet, you must have Stereo Mix and that is the source for recording.

On my WMP (I have Win 10) there is a speaker icon to the right of the Play button, and you can mute and also control volume. Check that its not muted and that the volume is not at "off".

You apparently do not have the codec to play MP3's. There are codec packs that can be downloaded.
KLite codec pack is one that is popular.

K-Lite Codec Pack 13.3.3 Free Download

The AMD sound device is the digital audio of your GPU, if you don't want that conflicting if your not using audio over HDMI then I suggest you disable that sound device in device manager leaving just the realtek one then install the newest driver by extracting the cab file you download from the section front page for realtek on windows 7.

Latest Realtek HD Audio Driver Version - Windows 7 Help Forums (June 27th one)