Latitude 3540 Windows 7 Pro
A couple days ago, my laptop got stuck on a black screen after being closed on sleep or hibernation mode for the night. The power indicator was solid, but everything was unresponsive except the AC adapter charge light. I tried all day to get it working, the only progress I made was getting it to turn off by my removing the battery.
I left it for the night, with the power indicator on, hoping to drain the battery and start again from there.
The next morning I pressed the power key, and it booted up. It brought me to the warning screen about an improper shutdown. I started windows normally. (still had 70%+ of battery)
Upon reaching the desktop I was notified that "QuickSet has stopped working." Additionally, my speaker icon in the system tray had an x and this message, "No Audio Output Device is installed."
I have been using the computer for three weeks and was using speakers and headphones fine before (neither work now).
To fix the audio, I have tried:
-Updating Windows
-Uninstalling and reinstalling QuickSet
-Checking 'Sound' in Device Manager for enabled and disabled audio components (nothing but Bluetooth Audio Device there)
-Checked in 'System Devices' - I found the HD Audio Controller which says it's working properly
-Ran DxDiag and it says "No sound card was found. If one is expected, you should install a sound driver provided by the hardware manufacturer."
-I updated/checked for Intel, Realtek, and Dell drivers related to audio (they were all saying I have the latest driver.
-I checked in BIOS setup and could not find anything related to sound for me to change
-I updated my BIOS
-I ran the Dell and Windows sound related diagnostics and all came back with no problems found
-Ran my virus scanner (all good)
-Restored system through Windows to a point before I started having problems
-Did a factory reset
Everything else seems to be working fine...
A couple factors I can think of that may or may not have been related to this issue:
-I had headphones plugged in when the stuck on black screen issue happened
-I noticed a high pitched whine coming from my laptop when the computer was on with the black screen (I read this may be the motherboard...?) the sound is gone now
I'm about to try hooking up a Bluetooth headset to see what happens.
Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.