W10 supports every sound card yet does not succeed in playing any sound through any sound card during testing.
W10 supports every sound card yet does not succeed in playing any sound through any sound card during testing.
Hello, I’m facing a problem since I restarted my PC last night. (Some games would crash right away when I turned it on. I thought a reset would help, but now my sound is broken.) This seems to be a software problem, not a hardware one. I’ve checked all my audio gear by connecting them to the laptop. Windows accepts every output, and the drivers are active and seem fine. Yet, any audio tests I run—like those in Control Panel or changing volume levels—just fail. The test tones from Windows don’t play at all; they don’t even show a visual cue for a second. No other media works either, whether online or saved locally. In the Control Panel, the error message reads “Error: Failed to play test tone.” I have five audio devices available, but none function during testing. I’ve tried isolating each one individually, but not in combination. Still, nothing works. It looks like the issue lies with Windows itself. My devices are: M-Audio Air 192 4, Razer USB Sound Card Headphone output on my LG monitor, Speaker output on my TCL secondary TV/monitor. I’ve plugged headphones straight into the front panel connector. PC stats are listed below in my Bio. I also tried a system restore, but both attempts failed—especially since it couldn’t revert after installing Parsec. Has System Restore ever helped before? /s I’d really appreciate your help with this troubleshooting. Thanks in advance. (I don’t know if this is connected, but I just realized another problem: games I installed via the Xbox app on PC won’t launch through the launcher or start menu, but work when opened directly as .EXE files. This only happened with Forza Horizon 5, and not any other titles. It might be unrelated, but I already found a fix, so I don’t need advice on this one. But it could still be related to the audio issue.)
To begin troubleshooting, I recommend restarting the audio services. Open the Run dialog by pressing WIN+R, then type `services.msc` and select it. Locate and restart the services: "Windows Audio," "Windows Audio Endpoint Builder," and "RPC Endpoint Mapper." If some don’t respond, disable their automatic startup. After testing, use a test tone again. If successful, set them to "Automatic (Delayed Start)." If not, consider reinstalling the drivers—possibly due to corruption or incompatibility with a recent Windows update. In the Control Panel under Sound and Playback, navigate to the Properties tab, then Advanced settings. Look for an option allowing apps to take exclusive control and turn it off.
I'm not sure, it varies with the hardware. You mentioned a software problem, but it might depend on your audio equipment. Let's look for more specific error messages: open Win X, navigate to Event Viewer. Move to Windows Logs, then System. On the left, you should see "Filter current log." In the "Event sources" section, pick options like audiosrv, AudioEndpointBuilder, and Service Control Manager. Click OK and play a test tone. Share what you discovered, but from what I read online, event IDs 1001, 1002, 1005, and 7023 usually point to Windows Audio Services not starting, while MMDevAPI errors suggest broken audio endpoints (often resolved with sfc /scannow)
Hi. I've already tried the SFC and DISM methods. I reviewed the logs to see what improvements they made, and it only resolved one issue related to OneDrive. In the event sources, there wasn't anything listed under 'audiosrv' or 'AudioEndpointBuilder.' I did locate Audio, AudioUI, XAudio2, SC Manager, and Service Control Manager. Within those results, the audio-related entries appeared before my first reply, specifically when "The Windows Audio service terminated unexpectedly." This coincided with the times I was using PowerShell to manage the Audio and Audio Endpoint Builder services. It seems unrelated. I also narrowed down all System log events to errors 1001, 1002, 1005, and 7023. The only relevant error was from the last 24 hours: "The SysMain service terminated with the message: The parameter is incorrect." That likely isn't important. The actual log entry was at 1:34 PM, probably when my computer was off. I put it to sleep around 2:20 AM with the audio problems and came back awake near 3:30 PM this afternoon.