Windows 7 Audio Problems

A few weeks ago I gave into temptation and decided to install Windows 7 on my Toshiba Satellite (A215-S7422) laptop. This was actually my second attempt with Windows 7; the first being a short lived installation with the initial released version earlier in the year. I spent about an hour trying to get the Realtek wireless adapter to work, but eventually gave up and reinstalled Windows Vista.

This time around the install went much smoother and everything seemed to be detected and operational. I’m really digging the new interface including the taskbar, which I wasn’t too sure about at first.

All was chugging along well until my laptop went into standby. When it woke up, I discovered there was no sound. The systray speaker icon had a red X and an error message “No Audio Output Device is Installed” appeared when I hovered the cursor over it.

A reboot “fixes” the issue until the laptop goes into standby again. A few Google searches have turned up similar issues on other versions of Windows, but no solid fixes.

I tried a few different things, including updating the bios and installing the latest Realtek Windows 7 drivers. Both upgrades went well, but ultimately did not correct the problem.

At this point I’m at a loss. It’s almost as if the audio is shut down at standby, and Windows “forgets” to turn it back on during the wake up process. Misery loves company, so feel free to post in the comments if you’ve experienced similiar issues, or better yet, if you have a fix.

UPDATE:  Toshiba has released a number of BIOS updates to correct this issue (I’ve confirmed the fix works on my laptop).   Kudos to Toshiba for releasing a fix for this problem!