Hi guys, I recently purchased 7 Dell Vostro 230 desktop PC's for the office I support, the machines are all running windows 7 32bit Pro and are experiencing sound loss after random amounts of time. Since the machines are used within a office environment there are USB headsets attached to each of the machines so they can play VoIP calls. The users started to complain that they would experience total sound loss from both the VoIP softphone and also from within windows its self. Once I investigated further I noticed that under the sound options or though windows would displays the headset as the active sound device right clicking on it > test it would not play any sound. To restore the sound you have to either disable and then re-enable the device or unplug it and reattach it do it reconnects and registers. The sound loss is totally random sometimes they can work for 6-7 hours before the loss occurs and sometimes it can be 30 mins into their morning and can happen multiple times or only once per day. I'm at the point where I'm at a total loss of what to change or look at next. Heres what I have done to try and test or change the issue: Created custom power settings to make sure everything stays on and does not go into sleep mode, USB devices included. Disabled all other sound including the on board HD sound Tried using different USB headsets while testing and the issue still occurred. There doesn't appear to be anything listed in the log files as to why the device loses sound. Any help will be very much appreciated and of course I can post more information as needed. Dell Vostro 230 machines using Plantronics 626 headsets. Windows 7 32bit Pro machines.

I see 2 main possibilities: 1) the driver is not ok. update the driver for the usb headset 2) for some reason power managment on the usb device is enabled and does not function properly. Disable the power mangement on the root hub from device manager: in the USB Root Hub Properties dialog box, click the Power Management tab. Remove the check from the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. MCP/MCSA/MCTS/MCITP

I see 2 main possibilities: 1) the driver is not ok. update the driver for the usb headset 2) for some reason power managment on the usb device is enabled and does not function properly. Disable the power mangement on the root hub from device manager: in the USB Root Hub Properties dialog box, click the Power Management tab. Remove the check from the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. MCP/MCSA/MCTS/MCITP Hi, I have done both of these already sorry didn't say so in the post as i've tried quite a few things and forgot to mention those I have also checked the make sure the USB headsets/drivers are compatible with Windows 7.

Hi, First, I would like to confirm the following details: 1. When the issue occurs, does the sound card still exist in Device Manager? 2. Does the USB headset have a build in soundcard itself? I would like to suggest you perform the following steps to check it: 1. Update the sound card driver and BIOS to the latest to check what the result. 2. Also check Windows Audio Service. 3. Try the headset which uses 3.5mm plug. Also, you could test this issue in Clean Boot mode: 1) Run MSCONFIG.EXE. 2) In the Services tab, click "Hide All Microsoft Services" and click "Disable All". 3) In the Startup tab, click "Disable All". Click OK. (This will temporarily prevent third-party programs from running automatically during start-up.) 4) Restart the computer. If this issue does occur in Clean Boot mode, we can try narrow down the root cause: How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 Hope it helps. Alex ZhaoPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.