Something strange happened from one day to the next on a computer system running Windows 7 Professional. The sound would stop playing even though everything was configured properly. The Creative X-FI sound card was connected, the volume was set to a moderate level and the devices were enabled. Still no sound in Windows 7.
A check in the Sound control on the Control Panel showed the devices that were able to produce sound on the computer system. The strange thing here was that the default device was set to be WSAudio_DeviceS[1] and not the Creative SB X-Fi Speakers. The configuration looked like the following in the Sound control panel:
The default device is the WsAudio_DeviceS(1) and the Creative SB X-Fi Speakers are only set to be the default communications device. It is possible to change the default device with a right-click on the preferred devicefor default sound playback and the selection of Set As Default Device from the menu.
This turned the sound back on immediately. A good way to test is to play some sound in the background while performing the operation. Later that day the sound device was switched again to WsAudio-DeviceS(1) which was obviously not wanted. It is unclear why the device was switched again.
The only viable solution to prevent that was to disbale the device that was not needed by right-clicking and selecting Disable. This removed the device from the display and prevented Windows 7 from switching the sound output device again.
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thanks it helped me a lot.
Same card, same problem but XP. No idea what changed either.
how can i enable both sound (speaker and head phone) in windows7 at the same time? by sound system is built in
Same card Windows 7.
I found that by messing around with the playback devices and selecting/disabling defaults worked fine the first time I had this problem.
Now I have been doing the same thing over a period of days and still no sound.
I don’t know who’s to blame. Microsoft, Creative, Myself or the manufacturer of my comp.
I installed Windows 7 Professional on a Dell E521.
LIke everyone else, I have no sound.
Been trying a number of fixes, so far nothing works.
I had previously Windows XP pro on the same machine, but reformatted the C drive or “zeroed” it, then did a fresh Win 7 Pro install.
You think MIcrosoft would be aware of this problem by nw and be offering help for it.
From going to their website they are asking $49.00 to fix problems.
What a ripoff!
I went through all kinds of things, reinstalling Java and Flash and finally found one solution that worked. Go into your Control Panel / Hardware and Sound / Device Manager / Sounds and delete your ATI driver. Restart your computer and it will find a proper one for you and everything will work ok again. It worked for me, hopefully it’ll work for you too.
Thank you for your help. The exact same thing happened to me and disabling the ws-audio fixed everything. Thank you so much!