Windows 8 Sound dying?

[John Smith]

So recently the sound on my machine will randomly stop working- no apps produce sound, Chrome doesn't, not even the system sounds. I posted about this on another forum which told me to check for hardware changes in the device manager, but that doesn't seem to be working, or at least not consistently.
From what I can tell, the sound won't cut out if it's playing. It will only stop when there's nothing playing at all. After that, it just comes back when it feels like it it seems. I've tried updating my sound drivers and everything, nothing is muted, so I'm at a loss. Anyone know what's going on?

All help appreciated.

 

[Josephur]

Next time it happens try restarting the Windows Audio service, see if that has any bearing. Also try removing the device from device manager completely (and chose the delete driver option if asked), then reinstalling it with the latest driver.