Really weird sound issue

Stoly

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So my sis gave me an old toshiba laptop with an E-350 APU, it runs reasonably well but it has a weird sound problem

the sound only works for a few seconds to a couple of minutes after startup, after I reboot or powercycle the sound comes back, again just for a little time. Sometimes it comes back after a while, but only for a short period.

I already reinstalled windows 10 and have the latest drivers. BTW during installation, I stopped listening to cortana right before configuring Wifi. After reboot, I got sound back, yet again for a short while.

BTW restarting the sound service doesn't help, neither does reinstalling the drivers. Only hard/soft reboot.
 
Have you checked your devices to see if you have some sort of competing sound devices that windows is flipping between? You might be able to select a primary sound device instead of windows just doing what it wants and alleviating the issue altogether.

the fact that it comes and go's makes me think it's a windows picking the sound output and switching incorrectly. Maybe a 8mm audio jack on the laptop itself that has dust or something stuck in it confusing windows into thinking you're plugging a headset in.
 
there are no other sound devices plugged

and windows only shows one sound device.

haven't tried external speakers or headphones.
 
Stoly said:
there are no other sound devices plugged

and windows only shows one sound device.

haven't tried external speakers or headphones.
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ok do you have a jack for a headset? If so see if you can't clean it out. Rubbing alcohol on a qtip and carefully clean it out. (Carefully because if that cotton ball breaks off in their you'll need a pointy bit to get it out and it could be frustratingly cumbersome to do so.
 
it works with headphones/external speakers
 
How do your headphones and or external speakers connect?
 
Could also be a driver thing - may check with Realtek or whomever the OEM is for the sound card directly and see if they have an updated chipset driver, that might fix the issue, since it solves itself with a reboot.

Could be an internal issue with the speaker/sound card wiring - they will go through a small pre-amp on the sound card to drive them, and that could be flaking out (since headphones/lineout seems to work fine). I kinda doubt it's a hardware issue though since it solves itself with a reboot, but still possible.
 
Brian_B said:
Could also be a driver thing - may check with Realtek or whomever the OEM is for the sound card directly and see if they have an updated chipset driver, that might fix the issue, since it solves itself with a reboot.

Could be an internal issue with the speaker/sound card wiring - they will go through a small pre-amp on the sound card to drive them, and that could be flaking out (since headphones/lineout seems to work fine). I kinda doubt it's a hardware issue though since it solves itself with a reboot, but still possible.
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might be some bloatware that's doing an override after everything finally gets loaded up. I know you did a reinstall but I've noticed, at least with newer HP laptops, that sometimes MS will somehow manage to grab some crap during a reinstall even if it's a clean one.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
might be some bloatware that's doing an override after everything finally gets loaded up. I know you did a reinstall but I've noticed, at least with newer HP laptops, that sometimes MS will somehow manage to grab some crap during a reinstall even if it's a clean one.
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Its a toshiba laptop and its bloatware free.
 
Brian_B said:
Could also be a driver thing - may check with Realtek or whomever the OEM is for the sound card directly and see if they have an updated chipset driver, that might fix the issue, since it solves itself with a reboot.

Could be an internal issue with the speaker/sound card wiring - they will go through a small pre-amp on the sound card to drive them, and that could be flaking out (since headphones/lineout seems to work fine). I kinda doubt it's a hardware issue though since it solves itself with a reboot, but still possible.
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AFAIK I have the latest drivers. Maybe I should try older drivers.
 
Stoly said:
Its a toshiba laptop and its bloatware free.
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That reminds me, I also have a Toshiba laptop (a Qosmio X775 3D gaming), and I remember some weird issue with the media control buttons a while back. It's been so long but that might be worth looking into. It wasn't a physical issue but something about those drivers if I remember correctly. You might want to check the Toshiba site to see if they have anything there for them.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
That reminds me, I also have a Toshiba laptop (a Qosmio X775 3D gaming), and I remember some weird issue with the media control buttons a while back. It's been so long but that might be worth looking into. It wasn't a physical issue but something about those drivers if I remember correctly. You might want to check the Toshiba site to see if they have anything there for them.
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will do
 
I found some drivers for windows 8.1 and it seems to last somewhat longer, but it still stops working.
 
tried some windows 7 drivers and it got weirder. It still plays for a little while, but in youtube/spotify, it plays for like 20 secs or so and then goes quiet, the odd part is that once it plays the next video/song, it works again. but not when pausing.
 
If this were XP days I'd look at the codec/filters but there's no way that could be an issue for such basic stuff these days but it reminds me of a buffer filling up and falling off the rails.
 
You're not going to believe this but since you've already covered all the other bases this looks like the problem: an overheating sound processor chip. Evidently its a thing for various older Toshiba laptops.

https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/sound-problem-on-toshiba-laptop.359192/

Dig far enough into the thread and some users talk about it and the solution is to, lol, put a heatsink on it. I have to laugh because after a couple of years, I encountered a similar issue with the GPU in my Qosmio but I never got around to fixing it but for me it had to do with the display not coming back up after a restart and having to take out the battery and do a reset, which didn't always work either. I'd go more into that but that's another story.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
You're not going to believe this but since you've already covered all the other bases this looks like the problem: an overheating sound processor chip. Evidently its a thing for various older Toshiba laptops.

https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/sound-problem-on-toshiba-laptop.359192/

Dig far enough into the thread and some users talk about it and the solution is to, lol, put a heatsink on it. I have to laugh because after a couple of years, I encountered a similar issue with the GPU in my Qosmio but I never got around to fixing it but for me it had to do with the display not coming back up after a restart and having to take out the battery and do a reset, which didn't always work either. I'd go more into that but that's another story.
Click to expand...

I was thinking it was a hardware issue from the start, but since changing drivers made the problem "less worse", I thought that might be it.

I'll give it a look, the thing is I threw away several old heatsinks I had lying around. ;) :rolleyes:

BTW the speakers sound is pretty crappy to begin with and I just got some BT headphones. But I'd like to fix it in case I give it to someone else in the future.
 
Have you checked your BIOS/UEFI settings? Sometimes sound problems can be related to BIOS/UEFI settings.
You can try System File Checker (SFC) and DISM: Run System File Checker (sfc /scannow) to check and repair any corrupted system files. Alternatively, you can run the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool to fix component store corruption.
 
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