I don't believe this is a driver issue for sure, but it seems that Windows has some issue. My computer has been running the same for the last year...but now all of a sudden in the last 2 days, when I run a game the first time, the sound is fine. When I exit that game and try to join another, the sound is gone and when I click the volume control on my taskbar it says "There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Add Hardware. This program will close now."
Then i go to control panel and go to Sounds and Audio Devices and everything is grayed out saying "no audio device detected". Obviously there is something wrong considering I have a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Value sound card. I believe this started happening after I was UnRARing a large file and somehow all my windows XP bar went back to the windows 98 type. I don't know if that has anything to do with it but it seems the times coincide.
Any help would be appreciated, I'm getting sick of restarting my computer just to join a game.
PS. Even after the sound goes off in games, there is still sound in regular windows procedure like logging in and error messages, even Ventrilo (VOIP sort of program) still allows sound.
Then i go to control panel and go to Sounds and Audio Devices and everything is grayed out saying "no audio device detected". Obviously there is something wrong considering I have a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Value sound card. I believe this started happening after I was UnRARing a large file and somehow all my windows XP bar went back to the windows 98 type. I don't know if that has anything to do with it but it seems the times coincide.
Any help would be appreciated, I'm getting sick of restarting my computer just to join a game.
PS. Even after the sound goes off in games, there is still sound in regular windows procedure like logging in and error messages, even Ventrilo (VOIP sort of program) still allows sound.