While I was watching a video on my computer, the audio suddenly quit. I might have inadvertently hit a key on the keyboard, but I don’t know which one (and I don’t know if any key would control this). In any case, the sound was out. Going from unmute to mute and back didn’t help, nor did making volume adjustments.
Can anyone help me get my audio back?
Which OS? Is any audio working? Windows has a global audio mixer but individual audio sources may also have separate settings like the volume slider in Youtube and a mute in a browser tab.
Have you tried restarting your computer?
What output is your computer talking about? Headphones, or speakers?
Trying a really simple thing first - check to see what your sound output is set to, the computer speakers or something else for example. And make sure the master volume / master muter isn’t set improperly.
On a PC, lower right corner normally has a little speaker with sound waves. Right click on it and it’ll let you check your speakers, master volume and troubleshoot as well.
If that doesn’t help, I’d also check to see if the sound loss is only in your video player, browser, or other app that you were using at that time. If so, that’ll give you a place to dig down on.
Good luck!
Check to see if it is only that app/browser that will not play audio.
If you were in a Chrome browser and it stopped then try Firefox or Edge or Opera (all free, your PC already has Edge on it).
Try YouTube and Vimeo. Or even CNN or Bloomberg to see if their videos produce sound.
As mentioned above, lower right on your screen for Windows 10 you will see a speaker icon. Make sure it is not muted. Right-click on it and you get sound settings as well as a troubleshooter. I’ve never found the troubleshooter to help much but it has on occasion. Certainly worth a try.
Let us know the results.
That’s good first advice, but also check for the output channel in the pop-up menu after left-clicking the speaker icon. When I connect via Bluetooth or HDMI cable to my TV, the audio output channel changes to the respective device, and sometimes after I disconnect/unplug, it doesn’t automatically change back to the internal speakers, which it should, and the audio goes into the void. In this case, choose the speakers from the drop-down menu.
I’ve had some program updates change my audio to my monitor. One has a speaker in it. It is a crap speaker, I never use it but on occasion the PC audio has shifted to it and I have to change it back. (usually an Nvidia update and I forget to tell it to skip the audio part.)
This too. I had a HDMI connection to the monitor (actually, a 43" $K TV) and the computer at times decided it would send audio via HDMI instead of the audio jack. (In fact, I just bought a new PC and that’s how I do sound now).
In START, type sound in the search field -and it will open the sound controls. See what it thinks is the sound hardware. See also volume settings here, as others mention.
Also, try replacing the speakers with a pair of earphones to see if it’s your speakers. (Does a pop-up tell you “new sound hardware”?)
Have you tried Googling on the topic? That worked for me when system sounds, like the alarm on my clock, mysteriously went silent on my Kindle Fire. Turned out it was a common enough problem that there were a couple of free apps available to make a fix.