No audio output

Hey there!
Out of nowhere, my desktop PC just went completely silent. No audio coming through the front jacks or the rear ones—nothing at all. At first, I was convinced my speakers had finally kicked the bucket, but then I tested them with my phone and they work perfectly fine. So, I tried plugging my headphones directly into the computer, and still... total silence.
I’m scratching my head here—what could be causing this? It feels like it could be anything from a hardware failure to some weird software glitch.
Is it possible the onboard Visa on the motherboard has fried, or am I looking at something else entirely? Would picking up a dedicated sound card actually fix this mess?

So, Windows 10 is being a total pain in the ass with my audio settings lately. It just went ahead and auto-installed some new drivers through Windows Update without even asking, and now it’s acting like these non-existent headphones are my default playback device instead of my actual speakers... I guess it's just one of those things. Anyway, if you're dealing with the same nonsense, the workaround seems to be right-clicking the sound icon in the taskbar, running the troubleshooter, selecting your actual speakers, and then clicking "apply this fix" to get everything back to normal.

electricharbor30 said:My Windows 10 is acting up—total nonsense with the audio! It just goes ahead and pulls down new drivers through Windows Update without even asking, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it decides some non-existent pair of headphones is my default playback device instead of my actual speakers... what a mess! The workaround I found is to right-click that little sound icon down in your taskbar, run the troubleshooter, select your actual speakers, and then hit "apply this fix"...

I’m actually running Windows 7 over here, and I’ve got Windows Update disabled entirely. But hey, I'll give your suggestion a shot—maybe later this afternoon once I finally make it back home!

electricharbor30 said:Man, Windows 10 keeps pulling this absolute nonsense with my audio settings—it just goes ahead and installs new drivers via an automatic update and then decides to set some non-existent pair of headphones as my default playback device instead of my actual speakers... honestly! The workaround? Just right-click that little volume icon down in the taskbar, run the troubleshooter, select your actual speakers, and hit "apply this fix"... works every time!

Thanks so much!
Your suggestion actually worked for me.
I was seriously starting to think I’d have to shell out money for a brand new sound card—or even worse, a whole new motherboard!
👍