Sound not working on Windows is nearly always one of three things: the wrong output device, a muted slider, or a broken audio driver. Work through them in that order. You can’t tell them apart by looking, so the checks below run fastest first.

Work top to bottom and stop when the sound comes back.

Before anything else: three checks that take a minute

1. Is it Windows, or is it that one app?

Open YouTube in a browser and play anything. If YouTube has sound but your game or Discord doesn’t, Windows is fine: the app is sending audio to the wrong device. Skip to per-app output.

2. Is the right device selected?

Click the speaker icon in your taskbar. There’s a small arrow or device name above the volume slider — click it and pick your actual speakers or headphones. Windows loves switching output to an HDMI monitor with no speakers after a restart or a display change. Microsoft’s own guidance for when no sound plays also begins with confirming the correct output device is selected before anything else.

3. Is something muted?

Right-click the speaker icon → Open Volume Mixer. Check that the master slider and your app’s slider are both up, and neither has a crossed-out speaker icon next to it.

If your keyboard has a mute key, tap it. Some laptops mute at hardware level and Windows never shows it.

If the speaker icon itself won’t respond and the volume flyout refuses to open, that’s the taskbar, not your audio. The same restart of Windows Explorer that revives a dead Start button usually clears it.

Fix 1: Run the audio troubleshooter

This one is worth doing early because it fixes a specific, common failure, the Windows Audio service stopping, automatically. Microsoft’s official steps for fixing sound problems in Windows put the automated troubleshooter first for the same reason.

  1. Right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar
  2. Click Troubleshoot sound problems

On Windows 11 you can also go to Settings → System → Troubleshoot → Other troubleshooters → Audio → Run.

Let it finish and apply whatever it suggests. If it says “Audio service not responding,” that’s your answer, see Fix 6.

Fix 2: Check the output device properly

The taskbar picker only shows enabled devices. If Windows has disabled your speakers, they won’t appear there at all.

  1. Settings → System → Sound
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click More sound settings
  3. In the Playback tab, right-click in the empty white space
  4. Tick Show Disabled Devices and Show Disconnected Devices

Grayed-out devices will now appear. Find your speakers or headphones, right-click → Enable, then right-click again → Set as Default Device.

While you’re here: right-click your device → Properties → Levels tab, and make sure the slider isn’t at zero and the speaker icon isn’t muted. This is a second, separate mute from the taskbar one, and plenty of people never find it.

Fix 3: Test the hardware

Two minutes here saves an hour of chasing software problems.

  • Plug headphones into the green 3.5mm jack on the back of a desktop (front-panel jacks fail often). If headphones work and speakers don’t, it’s the speakers.
  • On a laptop, plug in any headphones. Sound in headphones but not speakers usually means a stuck headphone-jack switch, plug and unplug a few times.
  • Try a different USB port for USB headsets, and avoid hubs.
  • If you use HDMI or DisplayPort to a monitor with speakers, check the monitor’s own volume in its on-screen menu.

Fix 4: Check per-app volume and output

Windows lets every app have its own volume and its own output device, and it remembers those settings even after you change your main device.

  1. Settings → System → Sound
  2. Scroll to Advanced → Volume mixer
  3. Expand each app

Set the app’s Output device to Default and push its volume up. Games and voice apps are the usual offenders — Discord in particular keeps its own device list in its own settings (User Settings → Voice & Video).

Fix 5: Reinstall the audio driver

If sound broke after a Windows update, this is almost always the cause.

  1. Press Win + X → Device Manager
  2. Expand Sound, video and game controllers
  3. Right-click your audio device (usually Realtek Audio, High Definition Audio Device, or an Intel entry)
  4. Click Uninstall device
  5. If you see a box saying Delete the driver software for this device, tick it
  6. Restart

Windows reinstalls a working driver on boot, which is exactly what Microsoft’s own audio driver reinstall procedure relies on. If sound is still dead, go to your PC or motherboard manufacturer’s support page, find your exact model, and install their audio driver directly. The generic Microsoft driver works for basic output but breaks features on many laptops.

If the update itself broke it: right-click the device → Properties → Driver tab → Roll Back Driver. This only works if Windows kept the old version, so it’s worth trying before the uninstall above.

If you’re not sure the driver is to blame: boot into Safe Mode and play a test sound. Safe Mode loads only the basic Microsoft audio driver, so sound working there and failing normally points straight at a third-party driver or an audio utility layered on top of it.

A trick for stubborn cases: right-click the device → Update driver → Browse my computer → Let me pick from a list. Choose High Definition Audio Device instead of the manufacturer driver. It’s more basic, but it works when a vendor driver won’t.

Fix 6: Restart the Windows Audio services

Audio depends on two services. If either stops, everything goes silent even though all your settings look correct.

  1. Press Win + R, type services.msc, press Enter
  2. Find Windows Audio
  3. Right-click → Restart (or Start if it’s stopped)
  4. Double-click it and set Startup type to Automatic
  5. Do exactly the same for Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
  6. Also check RPC Endpoint Mapper and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) are running — audio depends on them

If the services keep stopping on their own, that usually points at a corrupted driver, go back to Fix 5.

Fix 7: Deal with Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation

If your sound works but your CPU is pegged, or audio stutters and crackles, audiodg.exe, shown in Task Manager as Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation, is usually the reason.

It isn’t a virus. It’s the Windows process that handles audio effects, kept separate from the main audio service so a bad effect can’t crash your sound. When it eats CPU, the effects are the problem, not the process.

Turn the effects off:

  1. Settings → System → Sound → More sound settings
  2. Playback tab → right-click your device → Properties
  3. Go to the Enhancements or Advanced tab (the name varies by driver)
  4. Tick Disable all enhancements, or untick Enable audio enhancements
  5. Apply

On Windows 11 there’s also a per-device toggle: Settings → System → Sound, click your output device, and set Audio enhancements to Off.

Also worth checking: in the Advanced tab, drop the Default Format to 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality). High sample rates make audiodg work much harder, and you won’t hear the difference on normal speakers.

Never end the audiodg.exe task or delete the file. Windows restarts it immediately, and killing it just silences your PC until you reboot.

Fix 8: Turn off exclusive mode

If sound cuts out whenever a specific app opens, one program is taking exclusive control of your sound card.

  1. More sound settings → Playback tab → right-click device → Properties
  2. Advanced tab
  3. Untick Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device
  4. Apply

Audio production software, some games, and voice-chat apps do this by design.

Fix 9: Run SFC and DISM

If your sound broke alongside other odd Windows behaviour, system files may be damaged. Damaged system files rarely break just one thing, so if boot times crawled at the same moment the audio died, the scan that helps you fix slow startup on Windows is the same one you want here. Open Terminal or Command Prompt as administrator and run these in order:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

DISM repairs the store that SFC pulls replacement files from, which is why Microsoft documents running DISM before the System File Checker and why SFC on its own often reports errors it “could not fix.” Restart when both are done.

Fix 10: Roll back the Windows update

If everything above failed and the timing lines up with an update:

  1. Settings → Windows Update → Update history
  2. Scroll down and click Uninstall updates
  3. Remove the most recent quality update
  4. Restart

For a feature update (like 23H2 → 24H2), go to Settings → System → Recovery and use Go back — this option only exists for 10 days after the upgrade.

Quick reference

What you’re seeingStart here
No sound anywhere, red X on speaker iconFix 2 — enable the device
Sound in browser, silent in one appFix 4 — per-app output
Broke right after a Windows updateFix 5 — roll back the driver
Speaker icon shows “No audio output device installed”Fix 5 — uninstall and reinstall driver
Crackling, stuttering, or high CPUFix 7 — disable enhancements
Sound dies when one specific app opensFix 8 — exclusive mode
Works with headphones, not speakersFix 3 — hardware
Nothing works, other things also brokenFix 9 — DISM and SFC

Common questions

Why does my sound work but the speaker icon shows a red X?

A red X on the Windows speaker icon means the default playback device has been disabled or disconnected. Open More sound settings, tick Show Disabled Devices on the Playback tab, then right-click your speakers or headphones and choose Enable, followed by Set as Default Device.

Is Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation a virus?

No. Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation is a legitimate Windows process, audiodg.exe, which runs audio effects in a sandbox so a faulty effect cannot crash your sound. High CPU use means the effects are misbehaving, so disable audio enhancements. The genuine file lives in C:\Windows\System32; a copy running from anywhere else is not.

My HDMI monitor has no speakers but Windows keeps switching to it.

Windows treats any HDMI or DisplayPort display as a playback device, even when that monitor has no speakers at all. Open More sound settings, go to the Playback tab, right-click the HDMI output and choose Disable. Windows can no longer switch to it, so your real speakers stay default.

Sound disappears every time I restart.

That usually means the Windows Audio service is not starting automatically. Open services.msc, then set both Windows Audio and Windows Audio Endpoint Builder to a Startup type of Automatic and start them. If it keeps happening, install the audio driver from your PC manufacturer instead of letting Windows choose one.

Bluetooth headphones connect but no sound comes out.

Bluetooth headsets register as two separate devices in Windows: one for stereo playback and one for calls. Open More sound settings and set the Stereo entry as default rather than the Hands-Free one. Hands-Free mode also sounds noticeably worse, so avoid it for music and video.

If sound still won’t come back after all of this, plug in any cheap USB headset. USB audio bypasses your motherboard’s sound chip entirely, if that works, the onboard audio hardware has failed, and a $10 USB adapter is a permanent fix.