As often happens, it only seems that sound problems in Windows operating systems are difficult to solve on their own. If you carefully analyze the "symptoms", you can easily localize the possible cause of the abnormal "behavior" of the computer's sound card.
As you know, any computing system consists of software and hardware. The first is drivers, codecs, shells, etc. Accordingly, the second is represented by accessories, better known under the term "hardware". Obviously, problems with sound can be caused by both incorrect operation of the hardware component and control programs.
Although developers strive to make their products reliable enough, breakdowns do happen. If there are problems with sound, then it is more rational to begin the search for the cause precisely with the diagnosis of components. You need to make sure that the wire to the audio card has no visible damage - sometimes it’s enough just to transfer it with furniture, partially damaging the cores in order to get clicks, noise or complete silence in the sound stream (depending on how “lucky”). It is also useful to check the status of the connector. Well, the champion in the number of complaints about the sound is a kink of the conductor in the plug of the wire. For testing, you can temporarily connect ordinary headphones to the output.
More often, problems with sound arise due to errors in the software, sometimes completely unrelated to the audio stream. For example, sometimes it happens that the sound disappears after reinstalling the operating system, but before that everything worked. In this case, it can be argued that the reason is software.
Problems with the sound of Windows 7, and in any other system, most often arise for beginners who forget to install drivers. These special programs designed to control a device are installed once. When buying a computer, a disk is given on which the drivers for all components of the motherboard are located - they must be installed, and immediately after the installation of the operating system.
If the card is discrete (separate), then a support disk should also go with it. An alternative is to go to the motherboard manufacturer's website, find your model, download and install the necessary drivers. By the way, do not chase the novelty by installing alpha and beta versions, since they are unstable in work.
Sound problems in Windows 7 can also be caused by the peculiarity of the work of this system with the “direct sound” component. This is
hardware acceleration of the sound stream output by the card itself, which was actively used in early versions of Windows systems. In the "Seven" such an opportunity is abolished, since the mechanism of how applications work with the kernel has been substantially redesigned. Therefore, it is impractical in programs to use the ability to output sound through a “direct sound”, since distortion and noise due to double conversion are possible. For example, in the well-known Winamp player, running under Win 7, in the output settings you need to specify the usual Wave Out. So, here are two more possible reasons - drivers and correct output settings.
Sometimes wheezing in the columns can occur due to the involved Wi-Fi, Bluetooth wireless modules. If they are not used, they must be disabled.