Sound mysteriously disappears when waking up from sleep

Hello everyone!

I've been dealing with this issue for quite awhile now. What happens is, I will put my computer to sleep mode and when it wakes up, sound will be gone and no devices will be shown. It happens randomly, not every time it wakes up, but maybe 1 out of 4 times. The only way I have found to fix it is to shut down my computer and turn it back on (restarting does not work, the problem will persist).

SO I was wondering, is there anything else I can do to fix this issue? It's annoying.

I also have a question related to this. Is it safe to simply turn my display off and leave the computer on, not in sleep mode? Will that damage my computer in any way? I usually use the laptop all day and then put it into sleep mode overnight, but this issue bugs me enough that I'd consider just leaving the computer on and turning off the display.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

I had a similar issue with my R3, the only difference was that a restart would re-initialise it. I also found that running the windows sound troubleshooter would find the problem and fix it without restarting.

Never got to the bottom of it I'm afraid, a bunch of other more serious problems meant dell offered to replace it

Leaving it on (just in windows) is not going to cause any issues. There is a school of thought that not turning it off actually extends the life of a PC. It's the power-up and temp changes that stresses components more than just leaving it running. You won't need to turn off the display since there is a physical switch that turns it off when you close the lid.

Good luck

 

Thanks for the response, MickyD!

When I close the lid, my system goes to sleep. Is there some setting that changes what happens when I close the lid? I'd like it to automatically turn off all lights and turn off the display when I close the lid, but not go to sleep. Is that possible?

 

You're welcome. Use the windows power settings and it will offer defaults along with advanced options. Just set the close-lid to 'do nothing'.

You should have a hot-key to turn off all the lights, Fn-F11 on mine. I haven't seen any way to automate this

 

Cool. I'll set it to 'do nothing' and I'll just have to hit the function shortcut to turn the lights off each time. No biggie. Thanks again!

 

That should do the trick. You can also try updating the BIOS for this issue.

 

I did update the BIOS but it didn't seem to fix it. Also re-installed the sound drivers and it still happens. Weird.

I think I'm set now, though. I'll just leave the thing on. Thanks all for the help.