Sound card disconnected

I have an Acer V5 551g notebook, and until now I have been absolutely satisfied. It came with Windows 8, and a couple of weeks ago I upgraded it to 8.1. Not sure if it has anything to do with my problem, though. Whenever I try to play a video that is on my computer, or play music, there is no sound. (For example, I use VLC, and the picture is fine but no matter how many times I check that nothing is on 'mute', no sound comes.) However, when I play anything on the internet, the sound is just fine. Youtube is working, etc.

I checked the devices, and there appear to be 2: the speakers and the amd high def sound card. The latter appears to be disconnected. I have tried to check its 'properties' and there I was supposed to be able to check whether it was disconnected - and it said no. When I quit 'properties', it's still telling me otherwise. So my question is this: Is there any way I can 'reconnect' the AMD Radeon HD 7600G soundcard (or at least, I think that's what's in there)?

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Tommy-Acer

This is certainly a software issue. You state that sound is playing just fine from a browser, on the Internet, YouTube, etc.

It's only when you're in VLC that you are having an issue. I would suggest checking the configuration of VLC and ensure that it's using the proper output device.

Unfortunately, we are unable to support or recommend any third party hardware or software.

VLC does not ship with the system and I'm unable to tell you exactly how to configure it.

khmkhm

The thing is, I did check its configuration and the device it's using. I even tried reinstalling VLC. But no music/video has sound even if I use Media player or any other program (with Media player, it even says there's something wrong with the file format, which is now an issue with files I have played on it before...). I was just checking the sound devices and my only problem seems to be that it's disconnected. Any idea how I could fix that? (I've already tried to block and then unblock it, which some sites suggested - doesn't work. I've also made sure it has an up-to-date driver. Nada.)

Tommy-Acer

However, sounds still play from a browser? Just not any applications on the system. Is that correct?

khmkhm

Yes, exactly.

Tommy-Acer

The only thing I'm going to recommend at this point is that you restore the system to factory defaults to eliminate any possible software issues. Sound does work, so it's not a hardware issue with the sound card. It's not disconnected.