Lost sound after latest Windows 10 update (Sound Blaster Z)

Zelioom said:

Thanks for the keywords Serrin, helped me find this thread. Unfortunately rolling back/installing older drivers did not fix the issue for me. Sound was playing through my headphones just fine before I installed the Windows 10 Creators Update.

I'm sorry to hear that, are you using a creative sound card? Did you restart after rolling the drivers back? Did you roll back the drivers for "Sound Blaster Audio Controller" or for one of the other Sound Blaster entries? I specifically did the one for the Audio Controller but you could try the others too if you already have tried that one.

Try going into control panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound and making sure the settings there and the default devices seem correct.

Play a file that has audio and see if the green equalizer bars move for any of the items listed while the file is playing even if you can't hear anything. If the green bar is moving set that device to active and see if you get your sound back.

Serrin said:

I'm sorry to hear that, are you using a creative sound card? Did you restart after rolling the drivers back? Did you roll back the drivers for "Sound Blaster Audio Controller" or for one of the other Sound Blaster entries? I specifically did the one for the Audio Controller but you could try the others too if you already have tried that one.
Try going into control panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound and making sure the settings there and the default devices seem correct.

Play a file that has audio and see if the green equalizer bars move for any of the items listed while the file is playing even if you can't hear anything. If the green bar is moving set that device to active and see if you get your sound back.

Yeah, I have a Sound Blaster Z. I have tried pretty much everything. I've tried multiple older driver updates and they didn't have any effect. I've also made sure that default audio devices were correct, it was showing the green bars, but no actual sound was coming from my headphones. My microphone will still work through my sound card. Onboard audio still works fine.

Chewsock said:

Unfortunately that didn't solve the problem for me. It's strange. In sound blaster z control panel, i can go to the SBX Pro and do a test thing that has all speakers working properly. But when I got to test speakers it only plays out of the front left and right.

"Edit: Works now. I don't know what happened, and it's kind of embarrassing, but it looks like windows for some reason turned down all system sounds to 0. I then did the test, and it went through front L and front R, but i guess center, base and rear all went off of system sounds so didn't play anything?? Oh well...hours lost. Thanks for your help and suggestions."

Thank you for mentioning this! Turns out I was having the same issue! Last hour I spent debugging this and it was just the volume.

Was having same issue with my Sound Blaster Z getting muddled sound in browsers. Seemed to work okay in games though. Rolled back to the 6/24/2016 driver, restarted (full shut down and startup), had to go into the Creative Console speaker settings and switch it from 5.1 to Stereo (that's all I have hooked up) and it worked.

TairikuOkami said:

Make sure, you have the latest driver.

http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=1005&prodID=21402&prodName=Sound%20Blaster%20Z&subCatName=Z-Series&CatName=Sound+Blaster&VARSET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_21402,VARSET=CategoryID:1

EDIT: It seems, that installing the latest Sound Blaster Controller Audio driver causes the issue.

Rollback to the previous driver, it should solve the issue.

I registered here only to thank you.

THANK YOU!

Rolling back my creative audio driver (for a Soundblaster Z card) brought back my center- and bass speakers.
Working driver version: 6.0.103.34 (from 7.Feb.2017)

aroddo said:

I registered here only to thank you.

THANK YOU!

Rolling back my creative audio driver (for a Soundblaster Z card) brought back my center- and bass speakers.
Working driver version: 6.0.103.34 (from 7.Feb.2017)

I've a Sound Blaster Zx card & after rolling back the Audio Controller and restarting the box, shows me the latest driver once again, without center and sub woofer output (F&D 5.1). Frustrated, I enabled the built in audio from BIOS and restarted the device & all of a sudden center and sub woofer started working for Zx. Although the Audio Controller shows "Rollback" grayed out, version remains the latest. Well, am too happy that it is working.

Hello! In advance i apologize for my bad English, i want to share my solution to the problem with the Sound Blaster Z sound card in Windows 10. Often when i turned on the computer, i did not have a sound and only helped reboot. It turns out that in Windows 10 enabled the fast boot mode by default because of which there were problems with the load of the sound card driver. After disabling the quick boot mode, the problem disappeared. Yes, the driver is better to use the previous one, from the end of 2016.

Same issue after letting Fall Creator's update install last night. Very frustrating but based on comments here I rolled back to the previous Win10 driver set and I have control and volume again. Crossing my fingers for a Creative driver update soon.

Yeah! Windows 10 Home edition is really the worst shit. I´m running this piece of crap and every time my OS decides to make an automatic update I have to reinstall my SBZ sound card. I talked with Microsoft and I talked with Creative Labs and non of them gives a crap. I hate them both. They can both burn in hell for what I´m going through. I´ve even made a shortcut to the SBZ installer on my desktop, to speed things up a little. As said before f*** microsoft and f*** Creative labs. Let them burn in hell a**holes.