No sound but device ok, how do I troubleshoot this one?

I'm trying to go in deep on system events and registry to suss this out since I feel I've exhausted the obvious and interface-friendly options. Knowledge on getting more involved with more technical troubleshooting is appreciated!

UPDATE: The issue has been fixed!

I went through more back-and-forth uninstalls and reinstalls. In the lead-up to the fix, I installed the latest Realtek Drivers, the difference being that this time it was the SST ones. The drivers inform you that the process involves an uninstall and then the actual install and asks for a restart after both steps. The drivers weren't matching so at the end of this I had none of the machine-specific devices showing up installed in Device Manager. I then uninstalled these drivers. Upon then reinstalling the Lenovo-provided drivers and restarting, the sound actually worked!

I can maybe assume that the old laptop's Realtek drivers left registry values or config files they didn't clean up after and the new ones actually did this after uninstall, AND because this machine has SST devices the cleanup was necessary for the drivers to also perform on there.

There is one oddity here: the microphone in Sounds no longer shows an animated volume bar - it appears empty even when I make sounds - and also when I move its volume bar the volume value doesn't update...? Really weird but ultimately unimportant because I tested and the mic actually works well. It's actually a mic array with stereo input, both sides appear to work well. I'm afraid to touch it and try to fix this nitpick. XD

These were 3 stressful days, at least I don't have to reinstall the OS.