Go to device manager, select the audio device/driver and click scan for hardware changes.
voiala! sounds stupid but works for me.
Windows 8 occasional no sound problem. The device is being used by another application.
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Anonymous
Hi,
I have been having sound problems with the speakers on an HP Ultrabook running Windows 8. Occasionally the laptop speakers stop working. When this occurs, I go to Control Panel>Sound, select the speakers(only one set to select), select Configure and Test. After selecting Test, I receive the message Device In Use. The device is being used by another application. Please close any devices that are playing audio to this device and then try again. I've gone to Properties for the speakers, Advanced tab and unchecked option "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device". I've also used Run sndvol to try to determine the application, but it only shows Device:Speakers/HP and Applications:System Sounds.
The only way I've been able to get the speakers to work is to reboot or disable and enable the driver for the IDT High Definition Audio CODEC. Does anyone know of a way to determine the application causing the problem? Thanks in advance for your help.
Gary
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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Anonymous
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
On the HP Community forum an HP tech found that uninstalling Microsoft update KB2962407 should fix the problem. This update has a fix that states "Shortened battery life when an idle audio device is not turned off on a computer running Windows". I installed this update on June 19. I don't have any July updates installed, so uninstalling July updates may not fix the problem.
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Anonymous
2014-07-17T22:21:51+00:00 After searching for a while, this worked like a charm. If it happens again, I'll see if it works multiple times.
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Anonymous
2014-07-18T00:51:50+00:00 I have had this problem too and it must be the latest Windows Update as it's been for the last week or so this has been happening.
What an earlier poster said worked for me:
- Device manager
- Audio device/driver
- Scan for hardwae changes
This helped but again when I leave the laptop with no sound playing for a while I get the no sound problem again!
I found another quick fix, without having to shut down your whole system. If you put your system into sleep mode and then log in again with your user account the sound should work straight away when coming back from sleep mode.
But again this is not a 100% fix as when the computer is left without sound permanently playing the speakers go off. Both of these fixes are easy to do and don't take much time but it's just annoying having to constantly do it!