Prelude
I was having some screen problems on one of the PCs. Where the screen, keyboard and mouse would freeze, but any running programs would continue to function.
It’s a Windows-10 MSI PC. It uses a Realtek Sound chipset.
What I did
I updated everything to the latest version – from the BIOS, to chipset, to device drivers. It didn’t solve the issue, but this was the first step in resolving it. I didn’t check the sound. When we tried to use the PC for a zoom session, we discovered that the speaker no longer worked.
- The device manager showed it as hidden.
- I ran SFC and rebooted – no luck
- I checked the bios – the onboard sound device was enabled; there is no other setting for it.
- I installed MSI Center and updated all drivers that were old (Lan, Bluetooth, wifi etc). Still no luck.
- I uninstalled the hidden Realtek Sound device, rebooted and did a scan for new hardware – it didn’t find it.
- I searched and it seems that some others have had this problem with a bios upgrade. And a downgrade does not make the sound come back.
I see there is another such question but it’s for a different PC.
Is there anything else I can try?
