Sound Devices [Stop working after 2hrs - restored by reboot]

After using my PC for a couple hours all sound devices stop working. After rebooting, the situation is back to normal and I have some more hours till the next stop. I don't have the foggiest idea on what is happening.
Thamks for your assistance.

 

Thanks for both replies.
They were very helpful, but the origin of the problem is not overheat.
Only the sound devices are afected.

 

I think this will be a hardware problem.

If you have a plug-in sound card, try unplugging and reseating it. Otherwise there is little you can do beyond getting a new card.

If you have integrated sound on the MOBO, you're not sitting well at all. Getting someone to troubleshoot down to the discrete component level is generally too expensive to be justified. It would be cheaper to disable the onboard sound and get a plug-in card to replace it.

 

Thanks for your very helpful comments.
My main board integrates sound, video and network.
Before following yor idea for using an independent sound card I'll reinstall the OS to verufy that the software is not the bad guy.
Thanks again

 

That's one way to isolate it but a lot of work.

Perhaps try some easy things first. When the sound goes away, check in Device Manager to see if the sound items look healthy (no yellow marks). If they all look OK and the sound is still off, instead of rebooting, just log off and right back on. If the sounds doesn't return, recheck the Device Manager and see if now there is some indication of trouble in that area. It worth the time and may save you the re-install. While the sound is off, you could delete all sound related entries in the Device Manager and let the system reinstall them. That might render an error message that would be helpful.

 

To clarify, I meant to uninstall them and let the system detect and re-install them without rebooting. You can do that from within the Device Manager. There is an option on the task bar at ACTION > Scan For Hardware Changes..