The Sound Isn 39;t Working On My Dell Laptop
Hennie Jaffe
Whether it is virtual meetings, learning from home, or gaming, proper audio playback is important. Sound playback issues can occur whether you are using the integrated laptop speakers, external speakers, headphones, or headsets. If you notice any of the following symptoms, the steps below will help you test the speakers, headphones, or headsets.
A faulty device can cause audio or sound playback issues. Check if the audio device such as speaker, headphone, or headset is working by following these steps. To test the internal speakers of your Dell laptop, run the SupportAssist audio or sound test.
The SupportAssist application provides a quick and easy way to optimize your computer (including installing the latest Dell drivers and running a hardware test). Installing the latest audio driver helps resolve audio-related issues. SupportAssist also runs a hardware test and provides the results and suggested actions.
After rebooting, you may need to remove and reinsert the headphone plug to get it to work. After it's working, though, you will be able to remove and insert the plug, and behavior will be as expected.
On my laptop, a Lenovo G465, the sound was working well: each time I plugged the headphones, it would be detected and sound was piped through the headphones and muting the speakers. Suddenly it stopped working. Something weird happened without any changes or installation or whatsoever. I read that someone had to use alsamixer to activate it: lo and behold: I tinkered with the volumes and mutings and suddenly it started working again as before!!! I have no explanation, honestly.
None of the previous answers posted fixed my issue on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS nor on 16.04 LTS. My computer uses a Clevo motherboard and luckily a developer known as Unrud created an easy fix called "init-headphone", which for the Ubuntu distro it is called "init-headphone-ubuntu". Basically, you just install the ".deb" package for Ubuntu and that's it, with no restart required (at least this was true for me).
I have successfully paired my AirPods (2nd Gen) Pro with my desktop computer running Windows 10 and mic worked fine over bluetooth. But when pairing with my Dell Latitude 5421 with Windows 11, I get audio fine and it shows me the AirPods as an audio input, but no signal. I have tried removing/re-adding, checking to ensure drivers are up to date, levels are up, etc., but still nothing. Anyone else with a similar problem? Other things I can check?
Hi, a month and a half later - the issue persists. Does someone succeed in solving it? I bought Airpods Pro Gen2 because of its excellent Mic performance for conference calls. But, unfortunately, I can't use them from my Windows 11 Dell laptop for work.
I found a solution where I wait a little bit before I hit the "Airpods Pro find my" pairing in the windows find new Bluetooth device. At first it shows as "headphone audio" only, but then I wait for it to identify as Airpods Pro find my and it detects the headset and headphones options.
I have this same issue as well. Brand new Airpods Pro 2 with Dell Latitude laptop running Windows 11. I tried following all of the steps mentioned herein as well as on other site, i.e. removing Airpods from Windows Device Manager, Windows Bluetooth > Paired Devices, resetting Airpods Pro 2, rebooting pc and then pairing afresh. It works each time I do this, but only for that session on the pc. The moment I reboot it, the problem recurs.
It is extremely frustrating having to do this every single time upon restart. My system is fully up-to-date with all Windows Updates + Dell Drivers/Bios/System Updates. So far it doesn't appear that there has been a solution released by Windows/Apple.
The best step forward would be to reach out to Apple Support directly. They can be contacted here: Get Support, or by calling the most applicable phone number from this list: Contact Apple for support and service.
AirPods can be associated with one Apple ID. If you want to use AirPods (3rd generation) or AirPods Pro (1st or 2nd generation) that someone else has used, they first need to remove the AirPods from their Apple ID."
Just to provide some additional detail... on my Windows 10 machine the bluetooth driver is using Microsoft Version 10.0.19041.1 and it is working as you'd expect; however, on my Windows 11 machine it is using Microsoft Version 10.0.22621.1 which is not working.
This sounds great, thank you. I have installed the new Windows updates, but please explain how you "removed AirPopds Pro drivers" after that.... I see three drivers in Device Manager: Headphones (My AirPods Pro), Headset (My AirPods Pro Hands-Free) and Headset (My AirPods Pro). Which did you delete?
I am no longer trying to get the mic to work, as my research suggests that if the mic is operational, the sound quality will be poor - and that this is a limitation of Bluetooth that can't be fixed. Someone tell me if that's wrong, but if it's right, I'll just use the laptop mic.
I just purchased a new Dell Inspiron 16, and I'm having sound issues with Zoom. For a simple Zoom meeting where people are simply talking, Zoom is working just fine. However, my wife is doing a Zoom singing class where she plays music on her iPhone and sings along. For some reason, the other participants in the meeting don't hear the music coming from the iPhone, and her singing cuts in and out. Other participants do the same thing and their singing and iPhone music are heard just fine.
The reverse situation has the same problem. When one of the other participants is singing with their iPhone playing the music, my wife can't hear the music and the singing cuts in and out. Again, other participants have no trouble hearing both.
I am having the identical problem as well. My husband just purchased for me a new Dell Inspiron 13. Audio on Zoom works fine with direct voice communication to other party. But when I try to show a presentation with sound, the other party can't hear it at all or it's broken up with tremendous static. Tried uninstall/reinstall...no change. Tried updating audio driver assuming it could be a Dell issue, no change. Worked perfectly on my older unit. Key note is new Dell uses Windows 11
Audio works fine in Zoom meetings. I can hear participants and they can hear me. However, when the Host plays a music video presentation this does not play correctly and I cannot hear the music. I did not experience this problem on my old Dell laptop. I uninstalled and reinstalled Zoom and my Dell drivers are up to date. I am using the latest version of Zoom.
I have a Dell Inspiron 16 that I purchased just a few weeks ago and am having the same issue. If I use other video conferencing apps like GoogleMeet I don't have any issues. And I have no issues playing audio or video files in general. I've been in contact with Dell support and all the troubleshooting points back to it being an issue isolated to Zoom. I've been trying to work with Zoom technical support, but unfortunately, the level of support I get with my paid Zoom account doesn't allow me to directly speak to an agent. So all communication has been via email or chat. Zoom support has supposedly escalated this, but thus far no resolution.
I spent some time with a Dell support rep yesterday and I think my issue was resolved. He uninstalled the RealTek driver and installed another RealTek driver, made a couple tweaks to the virtual memory settings and everything appear to be working fine now. I'm not a technical person, but as I understand it, the RealTek driver that he uninstalled was a generic driver that was installed as part of the Windows update. The driver he installed was a Dell specific RealTek driver. I also understand that he set it up so that any future audio driver updates wouldn't be the generic ones from Microsoft, but would be the Dell specific drivers. I'm going to monitor things over the next few days, but from all the tests I've run, everything seems to be working fine now.
Glad to have been of help! I appreciate the level of frustration you might have had. I know I was getting very frustrated given the amount of money I had spent on the machine and the hours with both Zoom & Dell support.
After initially posting this thread in July, I spent literally hours over several days on the phone with Dell tech support. They had me uninstall drivers, reinstall other drivers, and finally do a full reset of Windows 11. Nothing worked. Reluctantly, I had to return the laptop. I will say that the Dell techs did their very best to solve this.
After first posting, I experimented with Skype and Google Meet, and they both, along with Zoom, had the same sound issue--cutting out when voice and singing were happening together with some other background sounds. The conclusion was that something on the Dell laptop was causing the problem. I never figured it out. Perhaps one of the RealTek drivers that I hadn't tried would have fixed the issue.
As an aside, I took my wife's old Inspiron 15R and upgraded it. I exchanged the hard drive for an SSD and upgraded the RAM from 8GB to 16GB. Then I reinstalled Windows 10. It's like a new PC and it works perfectly with Zoom, Skype, etc.
As I mentioned in my posts above, I never got the new Inspiron 16 with Windows 11 to work properly with Zoom. I returned the laptop. I had not changed RealTek drivers because Dell tech didn't suggest that and I hadn't read the posts here.
Just spend TWO HOURS with Dell technician regarding this problem (no guitar + voice). In the end, I found the helpful post from gswebb68 (above) and read it to the technican -- AND IT WORKED! Can't thank gswebb68 enough -- and hope that other technicians learn from this to avoid further agita for all
I was at a point of returning my new Dell Inspiron laptop because of this problem, but this solution fixed it, thank you! Dell should know about this and fix the problem with a software update, or at least let their techs know how to fix it.
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