Something is wrong
No sound on Windows 11
Complete silence has one hardware cause and about eight settings, and on Windows 11 two of those settings did not exist in Windows 10 — which is why guides written for the older version send people to menus that have moved and miss the answer entirely. The way through is to make a sound somewhere first. Once anything on the machine has played, the hardware is ruled out and everything left is free to fix.
The run, in order
Play a test tone in the browser
The step that splits the problem in half, and it is first because Windows 11 keeps both volume and output device per application. A tone here means the whole path is alive — device, driver, card, speakers — and the silence belongs to whichever program went quiet, which is a setting and not a purchase. Nothing here means the fault sits below every application, and the rest of this list is where it lives. Ten seconds, and it decides which half of the page you need.
Check which device Windows is actually playing into
Press Win + A for quick settings, then the arrow beside the volume slider, which lists every output Windows believes it has. A monitor on HDMI or DisplayPort registers an audio output whether or not it has speakers, and Windows will make it the default when it appears or when the machine wakes — so the sound is playing perfectly, into a panel that cannot make any. A Bluetooth headset counts as well: connected and in a drawer is still connected. This is the most common cause of all on a desktop, and it costs one click to rule out.
Open the volume mixer and look at the silent program's own row
Win + A, then the mixer icon at the right of the volume slider, or Settings, System, Sound, Volume mixer. Windows 11 gives each running application its own level and — unlike Windows 10 — its own output device. A program quietly routed to a headset that is switched off plays into nothing while every other sound on the machine is fine, and nothing inside that program shows it. If one application is silent and the rest are not, the answer is nearly always on this one screen.
Turn off Enhance audio for the output device
Settings, System, Sound, open your output device, then Enhance audio. The toggle loads the vendor's own processing — Realtek, Nahimic, Waves — and when Windows Update changes the driver underneath it, that processing can silence working hardware outright. Switching it off is free, immediate and reversible. If the sound comes back, the speakers were never the problem and the driver step below is the actual repair.
Find out whether one program has taken exclusive control
On the same device page, under Exclusive mode, is the setting that lets an application take the sound card for itself. Recording software, players configured for WASAPI exclusive output and the occasional game use it, and while one holds the device every other sound in Windows is silenced with no warning and no error anywhere. Close the likely application first — if sound returns, clear the checkbox so it cannot happen again.
On a Bluetooth headset, check which of its two entries is live
Windows 11 lists one headset twice: once as headphones, in stereo, and once as a headset, which is the telephone-grade hands-free profile with the microphone open. Any application that takes the microphone flips the device to the second entry, and anything still pointed at the first goes quiet. Close whatever holds the microphone — a call left open in another tab will do it — or select the entry that is now active. It behaves exactly like a fault and it is the protocol working as designed.
Restart the two Windows audio services
Run services.msc and restart Windows Audio Endpoint Builder, which takes Windows Audio with it as a dependent. A feature update can leave either stopped, and the symptom is total silence with a volume icon that looks entirely normal — or a red cross on it and "no audio output device is installed" while the hardware is plainly still plugged in. It is quicker than a reboot, and it tells you something a reboot does not: if sound returns, nothing was ever broken.
Swap the audio driver for the other one
Device Manager, Sound video and game controllers, your device, Update driver, Browse my computer, Let me pick from a list. There are usually two candidates: the vendor driver and Windows' own High Definition Audio Device. Whichever you are on, try the other — an update replacing a working vendor driver with the generic one is the commonest reason sound disappears overnight, and the reverse happens too. Roll Back Driver, where that button is not greyed out, is the same fix with less clicking, and nothing in this step costs money.
Try the headphones or speakers on a phone
The step that ends the search, and the only one that can point at a purchase. Ten seconds with a phone separates the equipment from the computer: silent there as well and the headphones or speakers are the fault; working there after everything above has failed and it is the socket or the sound hardware in the machine. On a desktop, try the rear socket before concluding anything, because the front panel is a separate device with its own detection setting — a dead front socket with a live rear one is a setting in the vendor's audio console, not a broken card.
Why the order matters
The steps fall into two halves and the first one is the hinge between them. Everything after it depends on what it showed, and it costs ten seconds.
If the browser plays a tone, the hardware is off the table completely: card, driver, socket, cable and speakers are all working, and the silence belongs to an application or to how Windows is routing it. Steps two and three are where that lives, and between them they account for most of the cases that get this far.
If the browser plays nothing, the fault is below every application and the remaining steps are it, in the order they are worth trying: settings that cost nothing, then services, then drivers, then the one step that can end in buying something.
Reading the outcome
The wrong device. Sound appears the moment the output is switched in quick settings. Nothing is broken; a display or a headset became the default. If it keeps happening after every sleep, it is the display doing it, and the monitor’s audio output can be disabled in Device Manager to stop it for good.
One application only. Everything plays except one program, and the volume mixer shows it turned down or routed elsewhere. Windows 11’s per-application output device is the half of this that people do not know to look for, because Windows 10 had no such thing.
Vendor processing or the driver. Sound returns when Enhance audio goes off, or when the driver is changed for the other one. Both point at the same event — an update — and the driver is the durable fix, with the toggle as the quick one.
A service that did not start. Silence with a normal-looking volume icon, or a red cross and no output device listed, cured by restarting Windows Audio Endpoint Builder. This one comes back if the update that caused it is reinstalled, and it is still not a hardware fault.
The hardware. Nothing anywhere: not in the browser, not after the settings, not on the rear socket, and the headphones work on a phone. On a desktop this is the onboard codec, and a USB sound adapter costs less than an hour of anybody’s time. On a laptop the speakers can fail on their own while the socket stays fine, which is worth testing before booking a repair.
What is different about Windows 11
Three of the steps above do not exist in the form Windows 10 had them, and that is why the usual advice runs out:
- Per-application output device. Windows 10’s mixer set the volume of each program. Windows 11’s sets the volume and the device, so a single application can be sent to a headset that is off while everything else plays normally. It is the most confusing symptom on this page and the quickest fix on it.
- The controls moved into quick settings. Win + A now holds both the output picker and the full mixer. Guides that tell you to right-click the volume icon were written for the older menu, and the entry they name is no longer there.
- Enhance audio. The same idea as Windows 10’s audio enhancements, renamed and relocated to the device page, and now the usual meeting point between a vendor’s processing and a driver that Windows Update replaced underneath it.
The Bluetooth two-entry behaviour is older than Windows 11 and still catches people, because nothing on screen explains why a headset that played music a second ago has gone silent for a call.
When it is not this fault at all
Sound that plays but only on one side is a different problem with a different list, and it is usually the plug or the balance control rather than anything on this page — the one ear only checklist covers it. Sound that plays fine while other people cannot hear you is the microphone path, which has its own run and shares almost none of these causes. And if the machine is a Mac, none of the steps above exist in this form — no mixer, no audio services, no driver to swap — so the Mac list is the one to follow instead.
This page is for silence: nothing, from anything, or from one program that has stopped making noise at all.
Common questions
Sound works in the browser but not in one program.
Then Windows has a working output and that one application is pointed somewhere else or turned down. Check the volume mixer, where Windows 11 keeps a separate level and a separate output device for every running program, then the application's own audio settings, which many keep independently of Windows. The third possibility is exclusive mode: if the silent program is the one that took the device, everything else goes quiet instead, so check which way round the silence runs.
The volume icon has a red cross and says no audio output device is installed.
Usually the endpoint service or the driver, not the hardware. Restart Windows Audio Endpoint Builder in services.msc first, because that is the service which builds the list of devices Windows can see, and when it is stopped the list is empty. If the message survives that, open Device Manager and look for the sound device: present with a warning triangle is a driver, absent entirely is the card or, on a desktop, a card disabled in the BIOS after a firmware update.
It went silent after a Windows update.
Two suspects, and they are related. Windows Update replaces audio drivers, and a vendor driver swapped for the generic High Definition Audio Device — or the other way round — can leave the vendor's Enhance audio processing loaded against a driver that no longer matches it. Turn Enhance audio off first, because it takes a second, then use Roll Back Driver if the button is available. Neither of these is a repair you pay for.
Everything plays through the monitor and I cannot hear it.
The monitor is the default output. Windows does this by itself whenever the display is connected or the machine wakes, because a display connected over HDMI or DisplayPort carries an audio channel whether the panel has speakers or not. Pick your real output in quick settings with Win + A. If the monitor does have speakers and you want to use them, check its own on-screen menu as well — the monitor has a volume of its own and it is often at zero.
Sound is fine until I join a call, then everything else goes quiet.
That is a deliberate Windows setting rather than a fault. In the old Sound control panel — Settings, System, Sound, More sound settings — the Communications tab has an option to reduce the volume of other sounds by 80 per cent, or mute them, while Windows thinks a call is in progress. Set it to do nothing. On a Bluetooth headset the same moment also switches the device to its hands-free profile, so both can be happening at once.
Does the Windows troubleshooter actually help?
It is worth the minute, and it is not a substitute for this list. What it does well is reset the default device and restart the audio services, which are two of the causes here. What it cannot see is a program routed to a different output in the volume mixer, a monitor with its own volume turned down, an application holding the device in exclusive mode, or vendor processing fighting a new driver. If it reports that it fixed something and the silence remains, that is what happened.