Sound muting automatically in Windows 8.1

Question

I've got a Windows 8.1 machine running on Gigabyte B85M-D3H Motherboard with a Realtek chipset for Audio.

For the last few weeks, the sound has been fading out across the whole OS on a regular basis. The volume mixer behaves as if sound were playing and after clicking on the mixer volume slider a couple of times the sound will come back for a short time.

I've refreshed the BIOS, the chipset drivers and the realtek drivers to their latest versions.

Solution 1

So after all this time, I found out what the problem was. The JBL speakers that we had connected to the computer had a built in feature that would actually turn the speakers off if there was no signal coming in. It was supposed to be 30 seconds, but any time the signal hit 0 the speakers would turn off and then take about 10 seconds to cycle back up to full volume.

Solution 2

The windows 8 version is having a feature to automatically mute all sounds when communication activity is detected. In order to deactivate this feature

Open the Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Sound
Go to the Communication tab.
Select "Do nothing" and then click on OK to validate.

If you are facing any issues after changing the settings. Kindly download automatic diagnoser and check.

http://support2.microsoft.com/mats/audio-playback-windows-8/en-us

Comments

[Steve Mitcham]

I've found a question with similar symptoms but no resolution there either superuser.com/questions/695465/…

[Steve Mitcham]

I saw that on a different web site and have already changed the setting, but it is still doing the mute. I've unset and reset that setting several times.

[Steve Mitcham]

Tried the audio troubleshooter with no luck.