No Audio Output Device is Installed error in Windows 11/10

The other day, I received a strange error – No Audio Output Device is Installed on my new HP laptop recently. I saw it when I hovered my cursor over the sound icon. After a bit of research, I realized that for me it was due to the recent Windows 11/10 Update – however, there are many other reasons as well. However, this could happen due to issues with sound drivers, legacy hardware, or your sound card.

So, basically, after trying almost 8-10 different fixes mentioned all over the web, I finally got rid of this error and got the audio back on my laptop. Such a relief!

No Audio Output Device is Installed

I don’t want you to go through all these troubles, so I am listing all the possible fixes for this error, here in this post. See what works for you. You might be lucky to get the issue resolved by the first fix, or you might need to try all of them one by one. These are the fixes I tried to fix the No Audio Output Device error on my Windows PC:

Let’s discuss them in detail. Please go through the entire post first, before you decide which fix to start with.

1] Run Windows Audio Troubleshooter

Windows 11

Open Windows 11 Settings, and navigate to System > Troubleshoot > Additional troubleshooters > Playing Audio.

Select it, and run the audio troubleshooter.

Windows 10

To Run the Windows Audio Troubleshooter in Windows 10:

2] Uninstall the Device

After trying everything mentioned above, I noticed the exclamation mark in my Device Manager. I was wondering how I didn’t notice them before. In my Device Manager, there were two devices mentioned under the tab Intel and after a bit of research, I understood that these devices got installed on my PC with the latest Windows Update and uninstalling them would bring the audio back in my laptop. I did that, I uninstalled the device drivers for the two devices mentioned there with the exclamation mark and VOILA, the audio came back.

Unfortunately while shutting down the laptop it again received the Update automatically and the error ‘No Audio Output Device is Installed’ was back and there was again a red cross over my laptop speaker. I did not want to hide the Update and so tried other steps.

3] Update the Audio Driver

Most of the issues are resolved through the Device Manager in Windows PC, so I decided to update the audio driver. To check for driver updates, do the following:

4] Contact Support for your PC

Next, what I did was to contact the HP Support team for Driver Support and see if they have some quick solution. This is where I came to know that the audio issue is due to the Windows Update KB4462919.

The virtual agent told me that it was because of the recent update and also asked to install the updates from a given link. I tried it, but unfortunately, it didn’t work either.

Similarly, you may contact your Acer, HP, ASUS, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, etc, support, depending on the make of your laptop.

5] Update Intel Smart Sound Technology Audio Control driver

Finally, after trying all this, I got the solution to the error, and it was fixed. My laptop got the audio back. So here is what I did-

Press Win+X and open the Device Manager

Scroll Down and click on System Devices.

Select ‘Intel Smart Sound Technology Audio Control‘, Right-click and click on Update Driver.

Within a few seconds, the wizard searched for the available driver and updated.

VOILA, the error was fixed, and I got the audio back on my laptop.

It didn’t even ask for a restart, and the error was fixed.

Now there were no exclamation marks anymore in my Device Manager and no red cross over my laptop speaker icon.

This is how I fixed the “No Audio Output Device is Installed” error on my Windows PC.

PS: Microsoft has also fixed this issue with the release of KB4468550.