No Audio Device? Random audio failures

[sparta.rising]

I have a T43 and its having random audio failures. Sound will be working fine, and then no longer work. When I open up the volume meter it shows audio volumes, but no sound. Sometimes if I just close all open applications, it works again. If I restart when the audio isn't working, Vista shows "No Audio Output Devices Installed". Its not just the speakers, the headphone jack doesn't work either. Running PC Doctor sometimes shows the sound card installed, sometimes not. Other than system configuration, I don't know what tests to run. I'm not sure exactly how I get it to start working again, but it does.

Software problem? Hardware problem?

My system is a T43 running Vista SP1. I just recently replaced the motherboard (the GPU on the old one failed) and the problem started soon after that.

Any ideas?

[schen]

I don't have any empirical evidence, but since it's intermittent as related to different applications running or being shut-down; I'd have to learn toward a software issue.

I recently picked up a T41 and it just wouldn't give sound under any circumstances despite the fact that everything showed to be fine under device manager, so I sent it back for a hardware failure. But in that case, it just wouldn't output sound regardless of what I did and the headphone jack didn't work either.

[ajkula66]

Try borrowing/downloading a copy of a "live" Linux CD, and see whether issues persist there. Linux Mint should work out of the box on your machine.

Good luck.