I finally solved (or worked around, at least) a chronic audio problem with my Windows7 PC [View all]

Yeah, yeah, Windows 7. This supposedly also works on Windows 10 and 11, so it's not totally obsolete.

Anyway, for years the audio on my PC was hit-or-miss... it would sometimes work fine, and sometimes get all slow and digital like I was in a time warp or something.

{{insert Windows 7 joke here, chuckle, move on}}

And once it happened, only a computer restart would fix it. Briefly.

Playing a movie file, playing an audio file, or streaming a radio station, it it didn't matter. A few minutes of things being just fine, then digital noise grating on my ears. I would turn off memory-intensive things like Firefox, BOINC, etc., and it still would happen!

I have a graphics card as well, best one I could by for an older business computer, and it has digital audio as well as video. I use an older 32" HDTV as a monitor, using an HDMI cable. I also have a set of speakers plugged into the PC's built-in audio jack. The issue would affect both! Whether video-card audio played through the TV's speakers, or motherboard audio played through the standalone speakers, it kept happening.

So, because a co-worker went home Friday with Covid-19 I'm isolating in my computer room/spare bedroom. And now the sound issue was really important because I don't want to watch TV on the tiny screen on my phone!

After a few frustrating attempts to finally solve this issue once and for all (with no success) I think I've found a workaround, and perhaps a per-session cure.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-sound-or-audio-problems-in-windows-73025246-b61c-40fb-671a-2535c7cd56c8

I did #9... restarting the audio services, because I had already done 1 thru 8, and 10. I even subscribed to a $30/year driver-update service to make sure it wasn't a driver issue!

So here's what you do:

Click the Windows logo and in the search field, type in "services". A logo with a couple of meshed gears will come up, called, creatively, "Services". I personally pinned my to the start menu so I can find it again easier if need be.

Click the "Services" icon, and a window will open with Local Services listed. It should be default be on the "Extended" tab, if not, click on it. Scroll down until you find "Windows Audio Endpoint Builder". Right-click on it, and select "Restart". This will restart both itself and Windows Audio, and then *boom*, the issue goes away.

I don't know if I have to do this each time I restart the computer. My gut says "probably". But I did it yesterday, and I've streamed lots of music and watched lots of video files and haven't had a sound issue since!

I hope this helps somebody, because it sure as hell helped me!