Audio - something's grabbing it & won't let go

[Fred B.]

I've had a sudden loss of all audio twice this past week. A reboot clears
whatever's grabbing my sound.

The first time I lost it was while Media Player was operating, but the
second time I was just sitting here doing normal office stuff when I noticed
I had no sound.

I've checked "device manager" and everything's okay there. Looked at what's
running in "task manager" and can't see anything remotely related to sound
functions.

This machine does have Media Center, but it wasn't doing anything either
time, and its normal stuff was running in the background, ready to go if
needed.

Any clues would be appreciated.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

The audio device is meant to be generally shared, so if it's stopped
producing audio, this has historically meant that it has locked up. What
sound card is this? Is there a driver update available?