VGN-AR21S Lost Audio Device

[sanremo]

Hi - my AR21S will play the switching on & off jingles but no other sounds. The Sounds and Audio Devices aplet indicates 'No Audio Device' under the 'Volume' tab but under the 'Hardware' tab all devices and drivers are installed and correctly working.

I have tried system restore to pre Windows XP SP2 install and Windows Media Player 10 upgrade without restoring the sound.

I would really appreciate some advice on how to get my sound back.

[Blencogo]

Hi sanremo,

Check if 'Windows Audio' Service is running and configured to run automatically at startup.
Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
Scroll down to Windows Audio and check that the Service is 'Started' and that the Startup Type is set to Automatic.

The only other thing you can try is to Uninstall the Sigmatel Codec from Device Manager and re-boot to force Windows to reinstall the driver.

[davemee]

Highly anecdotal, but I had this problem this morning while messing around with a new vista installation on an AR31S (I know you mentioned XP, but ... hey!). I think I accidentally ran the audio driver update from vaio update twice, and when I uninstalled it, the sound returned. I had the same symptoms as you (bios jingle plays, windows says 'no sound device' but has it in device manager, and the audio buttons would flip between mute/mute and a maximum of 1 bar on the on-screen volume slider).

Might be worth a shot.

Oh, an odd symptom of this solution is that vaio update always lists the audio driver as a new update

d

[sanremo]

Hi Blencogo and daveme,

Very many thanks for your replies and helpful suggestions. I tried Blencogo's check of 'Windows Audio Service' first. It required starting and all seems to be ok now.

Thank you both for your help. :-))