Speaker issues

So, here’s the deal. This past summer, I lent my roommate my laptop while I was out at work. It was working perfectly when I handed it over. But when I got home? Total silence. No sound at all. I asked her what happened, and she honestly had no clue. She tried plugging in some external speakers, and everything sounded fine until she unplugged them. 🙄

I have tried absolutely everything. I checked the drivers, updated the drivers, messed with every single setting, performed a system restore from a few months back, and even did a full reinstall of Windows. Nothing worked. Nothing! I finally just resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to buy new speakers. Since I am incredibly lazy, I didn't want to bother buying anything new, so I figured I'd just stick to headphones or external speakers since the jack was still working.

But then things got weird. Really weird. I was on a Skype call with a friend the other day and suddenly realized the audio was coming through my laptop speakers instead of my headphones. I was actually stoked for a second, thinking, "Hey, maybe the speakers are fixed!" But then I went to play a song and—nothing. Silence again. It turns out the speakers only work when I am actively on a Skype call. As soon as the call ends, the sound dies. 🤷 I've been digging through settings and poking around everywhere, but I can't make heads or tails of it. I searched online and found a couple of similar stories, but nobody seems to know why this happens or how to fix it. 🤷
The only way I've managed to get any sound at all is by creating a second Skype profile on my tablet so I can basically call myself. 😵

For context, I'm using an HP EliteBook running 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate, if that helps anyone.
If anybody knows what's going on here, please help me out. I'm begging you!

And when you plug in some external speakers, does the sound actually work then?

It’d probably be better if you just set the built-in speakers as the default playback device, you know? Like, just make it happen automatically:

When I plug in external speakers, the built-in ones only kick in when I'm on an active Skype call.

Lawrence Barnes64 said:It should work fine if you set the built-in speakers as the default playback device:

I have two options here: built-in speakers and headphones, and I've got the speakers set as my default.
But the second I get an active Skype call and switch my default over to headphones, the sound just vanishes completely! This means the speakers themselves are working perfectly fine. The weirdest part? Even after a total Windows reinstall, nothing changed. It’s still doing the exact same thing. 🤷

Every single person I ask just scratches their head and laughs at me.

I was just thinking—is it possible you accidentally set your speakers to work only as the > instead of the >? That would totally explain why they only seem to kick in whenever you're actually on a > call!