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My brother uses this Lenovo G780 laptop with Windows 7 64-bits running on it. Recently, there's no sound coming out of it anymore.
There used to be a ! in device manager, so I reinstalled the Conexant sound drivers, but that didn't work. The ! was gone though, but no playback devices were listed. I tried removing the device, rebooting and using Microsofts generic High Definition Audio Device drivers, but that didn't help either. Everything is still ok in Device Manager and now there are also playback devices listed, but there's no sound coming out of them. (No, I have not pressed any mute button anywhere.) Reinstalling the Conexant drivers now fails though, because it can not find the device anymore. When clicking on the sound icon in the lower right of my screen, a problem solving wizard appears and tells me that the audio device is turned off, which is definitely not the case.
I have also tried headphones, but they didn't work either. Furthermore, almost every game on the machine crashes with some error that points to a sound card problem.
Now for the questions:
- Is there any way that this is not a hardware problem? Sadly, I have no usable restore points. Also, as far as I can tell there has not been a software installation or Windows update that caused the troubles.
- Is there an easy way to test whether the hardware is ok? It appears that information that Windows gives me can not really be trusted. I have not tried reinstalling the OS yet, but I very much doubt it will help.
Thanks in advance!
Bla Blaat
Posted 2013-08-06T12:55:22.177
Reputation: 21
I would simply install Windows 7 again. Its unlikely the hardware is damaged if it only stop working AFTER you installed the driver. – Ramhound – 2013-08-06T13:21:50.520
@Ramhound: the sound stopped working at a random time, before I started messing with the drivers. – Bla Blaat – 2013-08-06T13:26:33.903
Check in BIOS to make sure the device is enabled. Some BIOS's have an option in there to turn the various devices on and off... If that fails, then I'd go with @Ramhound's suggestion. – Taegost – 2013-08-06T13:27:13.233
@Taegost: there is no such option for the sound device in my BIOS. – Bla Blaat – 2013-08-06T13:28:25.113
I would try a program called Slimdrivers and see if can find newer and/or better drivers. – cybernard – 2013-08-06T13:44:58.260
@cybernard: it can't. – Bla Blaat – 2013-08-06T16:57:41.503