Sound Suddenly Not Working (and Flash videos choppy)

[abc617]

Hi, so my problem is very similar to the one in this person's thread: http://www.sevenforums.com/sound-audio/4361-sound-not-working.html

Basically, my sound is no longer working. This all happened while my laptop was on. It was working for a couple hours, then I just put it on standby. Came back to it and it lost its sound. I also went to YouTube to try if sound would work there, and it didn't, but I noticed that the videos are choppy/laggy. But I tried a .avi I had and it worked fine.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling the audio drivers, no cigar. Disabling/re-enabling in device manager, no help.

What i did notice was that my laptop was running really hot;70°-80° Celsius WITH a laptop cooler, which is really bad, i know (I plan on reapplying some thermal grease on it next week). Is it possible that my laptop overheated and fried my sound card? (but it doesn't explain why flash videos like YouTube started lagging.)

My Computer specs:

• Acer Aspire 5535-5452 Laptop
• Windows 7 32-bit Home Premium
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 QL-64
• Realtek HD Audio (Installed the latest driver, R264)
• ATI 3200HD Graphics
• AMD M780G Chipset

More information on this model at Acer Support: Aspire 5535 Series Specifications

Thanks for anyone who can provide an answer!

 

[karlsnooks]

abc,

Very doubtful that the sound card is fried.

In the meantime, keep an eye on those temps using either Speccy or CoreTemp. Seel my sig for links.


Get a can of compressed air and blow out the dust. Direct the air stream at any and all vents you can find. Be sure to let the water blow out of the compressed air can before spraying your laptop.

Next get yourself a desktop/tabletop/floor fan and let it blow directly at your laptop intake vents.

Next change the power plan to PowerSave.

Turn the brightness down the lowest acceptable level.

If all of these measures, you are still having problems then we can pursue possible driver problems.

Here's how to adjust your power plan and your brightness:
WIN + X keycombo |

You will see sections for adjusting the power plan and for the the brightness.

WIN is the key with wavy microsoft flag on top.

 

[abc617]

My problem isn't the heat (it's probably the dust/worn out thermal paste/grease so I plan on cleaning it out next week when I have more free time).

My problem is the lack of sound from my computer.

I've managed to temporarily bring the temps down to 50°-60° C for now by taking off the back cover and letting the cooling pad blow directly on it for now.

 

[karlsnooks]

choose a System Restore point prior to the problem showing up.

SYSTEM RESTORE


WIN | type SYSTEM RESTORE | ENTER |
Check the Choose a different restore point radio button | NEXT |
Check Show more restore points (lower-left) |
Select the desired restore point |
Scan for Affected Programs button | note the affected programs |
CLOSE | NEXT | FINISH

WIN is the key with wavy Microsoft flag on top.

 

[abc617]

Now I can't even load System Restore. It says "volume shadow copy service used by system restore is not working." tried safe mode and that doesn't fix it either.

Looking back, I think this problem was caused when I uninstalled an old game using Revo Uninstaller to get rid of an old game. It must've deleted some registry keys and somehow rendered my sound, flash video capability, and now system restor inoperable

I think I'm going to wipe the HDD and put a clean copy of Windows on it since it's probably a system file that was deleted. Probably never going to use Revo Uninstaller advanced mode ever again. Will let you know results when I get the chance to reimage this laptop for those who may be experiencing similar issues.

 

[karlsnooks]

the wipe and clean install is a good idea.

Your problems were NOT caused by Revo Uninstaller.

 

[bobland]

I've had similar problems with my desktop. Usually, I just reboot to resolve the problem. When I did this I would get a warning that some programs needed to be closed. I decided to see who was "hanging around," so I closed all programs and opened task manager. Just by chance I saw a file named audiodg.exe. Since I was going to reboot I decided to end process and see what happened. I opened YouTube and the video had sound.

Most of the problems associated with this file were legacy memory leaks, which, presumably, are fixed now. Give it a try and see if you get any results.

 

[karlsnooks]

bobland,
You will probably find this link interesting:

Fix High CPU Usage Audiodg.exe in Windows 7 and Vista


This link, essentially says the same thing and the identiical approach to solving the problem.

Fix: Audiodg.exe High CPU Usage

My only question is if you have a suspicion as to which "enhancement" software caused the problem.

 

[abc617]

Well the strange thing is that now my explorer.exe was not responding and required closing/reopening, and Windows couldn't even see my network adapters. Seems like a virus, but my anti-virus didn't catch anything.

But looking back at my event logs, all my problems started happening after I uninstalled the game (using Revo). All my logs after I ran Revo, i noticed I ran into audio errors, unable to open some random .dlls and crazy stuff like that. It may be a coincidence, or it may have been the cause. But I just finished reformatting my computer, and everything is now working okay.

 

[HPaterson]

So no fix?

I have the same problem now with my HP laptop

I've tried all the above.

Must I wipe my computer clean and start over?

 

[abc617]

Yeah, I had to wipe my computer and reformat it to get it working again. It probably is the sure-fire way to fix it (unless your laptop's speakers are broken)