How to Fix No Sound on Windows 11

No sound on Windows 11 almost always comes down to one of four things: the wrong playback device is selected, a single app is muted in the volume mixer, the Windows Audio service has stalled, or the audio driver is broken. Work through the checks below in order and test after each one, since most people never need to reach the driver step. The table at the end maps common symptoms straight to a fix.

Confirm the output device and check the volume mixer#

Start with the fastest possible cause: Windows is sending sound to a device you are not listening on, such as a monitor’s HDMI speakers instead of your actual headphones. Select Start > Settings > System > Sound, then under Output pick the device you expect to hear from. You can also click the speaker icon in the taskbar and use the arrow next to the volume slider to switch devices without opening Settings at all.

If the right device is selected but one specific app stays silent while everything else plays fine, the problem is usually per-app, not system-wide. Go to Settings > System > Sound > Volume mixer (or open it from the same taskbar speaker menu) to see every running app with its own volume slider and output device. Unmute the app, raise its slider, and confirm it is pointed at the same device as the rest of your system.

Run the built-in audio troubleshooter#

Windows 11 ships a troubleshooter built specifically for playback problems, and it is worth running before touching drivers or services. Go to Settings > System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters, find Audio in the list, and select Run. It checks for muted devices, disabled endpoints, and a handful of other common misconfigurations, and fixes several of them automatically.

Restart the Windows Audio service#

When sound worked recently and then stopped everywhere at once, with no red X on the speaker icon, the Windows Audio service itself may have hung. Type services in the taskbar search box and open the Services app. Find Windows Audio, Windows Audio Endpoint Builder, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC), right-click each one, and select Restart. If any service shows as stopped rather than running, right-click it, choose Properties, and set Startup type to Automatic before starting it.

Update or roll back the audio driver#

If output device, mixer, and service are all fine, the driver is the next suspect, especially if the sound loss lines up with a recent Windows update. Type device manager in the taskbar search box, expand Sound, video and game controllers, right-click your audio device, and choose Update driver > Search automatically for drivers. Windows can also surface newer drivers under Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates > Driver updates.

If the sound broke right after a driver or Windows update installed, do the reverse. In Device Manager, right-click the audio device, select Properties, open the Driver tab, and choose Roll Back Driver. That button stays grayed out if Windows has no earlier driver saved, which simply means there is nothing to roll back to; in that case, uninstall the device and restart so Windows reinstalls a clean driver from scratch. If the audio hardware is built into a laptop or all-in-one, checking the manufacturer’s support page for a dedicated driver package is often more reliable than the generic one Windows finds on its own.

Symptom, cause, and fix at a glance#

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
No sound anywhere, speaker icon looks normal	Wrong output device selected	Settings > System > Sound > Output, pick the correct device
One app is silent, others play fine	App muted or routed to the wrong device	Settings > System > Sound > Volume mixer, unmute and fix the device
Sound stopped right after a Windows update	Update broke or replaced the audio driver	Roll back the driver in Device Manager
Speaker icon shows a red X, or “no audio output device is installed”	Driver missing, disabled, or the audio service stopped	Restart the Windows Audio service; reinstall the driver
Sound crackles, cuts out, or plays too quietly	Faulty enhancements or an outdated driver	Turn off audio enhancements; update the driver
Only HDMI or a dock’s speakers show no sound	Wrong device set as default for that output	Set the HDMI or dock device as the default output

Sound problems tied to a driver can resemble other post-update glitches, so if audio is the only thing acting up right after a patch, it is worth checking what to do about apps crashing after a recent Windows update too. And if none of the steps above bring sound back, booting into Safe Mode on Windows 11 to see whether audio works there can tell you whether a driver or a third-party app is the real culprit, since Safe Mode loads only the bare minimum.

Run these five checks in order and note which one actually fixed it, because audio glitches on the same machine tend to repeat, and next time you can skip straight to the step that worked. If the issue turns out to be a Bluetooth headset or a phone’s speaker rather than the PC itself, the fixes are different enough that troubleshooting audio issues on smartphones is a better starting point than anything above.