Tip of the Week- For the week of December 21, 2008

Welcome to our Tip of the Week section, where i share my knowledge of computers and what they are able to do to make your life easier. This episode is for the week of December 21, 2008.

This weeks tip has saved my family hundreds of dollas and hours of yelling, twice. It is a seemingly common problem in Windows Vista where some sort of random power surge or failure, or unexpected sleep/hibernation can nock out the system sound. Upon returning to your account, you will see the normal spacker but with an x over it, and when clicked an error message saying “No audio output device installed.” The fix is simple. Go into Control Panel>Devices>Sound and uninstal the audio driver. Then, restart, and you have sound when you return.

This problem seems to be the most common with the Realtek HD audio devices and SigmaTel Audio devices, both of which are common in PCs. If you have furthur problems, go to the Microsoft Forums here.