Suddenly No Sound

I have some very strange symptoms. Everything was working just fine this morning. This afternoon I went to play a game and suddenly there was no sound. Windows Media also won't play anything, it keeps giving me an error message.

I've tried everything. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers. I've reinstalled the recommended codecs. I've run Anti-Malware, IOBit, and AVG with no luck finding any virus or registry problems. I even tried to do a System Restore and it won't let.

At this point, I'm stumped and am looking for any help I can get. I'd hate to have to reload the OS.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Try to install brand new "Realtek AC '97" HD audio driver from Realtek

It shows like this:
Windows7 Driver (32/64 bits) Driver only (ZIP file)R2.32-----2009/9/3-----35842kB

Good luck!

power cycle will be a useful trick..
uninstall the driver first then power cycle..
that's what i did on my laptop and it worked.

reinstall the sound card driver. if that also has no sound I guess your sound card just died.