WIndows 11 can't see my external speakers

Copper Contributor

I have a Dell XPS13 laptop. When I'm working at my home office, I plug it into a small USB-C dock. The dock has an HDMI cable that goes to my external monitor. The monitor also acts as a USB hub so there's a USB uplink cable from the dock to the monitor. My keyboard, mouse and webcam and external speakers are all plugged into sockets on the monitor.

 

I assume that the audio output goes through the HDMI cable to the monitor.

 

Under Windows 10, I'd plug the laptop into the dock and everything worked perfectly. I updated to Windows 11 on Tuesday and now everything works except the external monitors.

 

The sound settings dialogue box doesn't see the external speakers so I'm not offered them as an output option - so I'm currently only able to get sound out of my laptop speakers. That's not a terrible problem to have, but I'd prefer to use the external speakers which have previously worked fine.

 

If anyone has any suggestions for fixing this, I'd be very grateful. Please let me know if you need any more information.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave...

2 Replies

And two days later, it started to work. No idea what happened there.

 

@Dave_Cross 

@Dave_Cross  I cannot use my external speaker with windows 11.  I had the same setup with windows 10 and the external speaker worked fine.  I plug my external speaker jack into the headphone slot and do not go through a usb port since the speaker does not have a usb plug, only a jack like on a headphone.

The computer with windows ten was a hp15. The computer with the problem is a new hp14 with windows 11 installed by the factory..

I called HP support because I was originally having problems with the original sound in windows 11.  That problem was solved with new drivers so the sound can be controlled using the task bar speaker icon. However, I prefer the external speaker because it is easier to control the volume, and the external speaker is much better for listening to music.  Now I get sound from the computer but when I plug in the external speaker it does not control the sound volume. I can turn the external speaker off and there is no change in the sound. I turn the external speaker to high, there is no change in sound volume.

This is one of those whose fault is it problem. The hardware people say it is a incompatability with windows 11 problem. However, it may be that the headphone receptacle is faulty in the new hp 14 and worked in the hp15.  I did plug the speaker into the 15 while talking to HP and it worked fine, but then when we went back to the 14 it didn't work.

We have done all the driver updating and tried all the audio fixes in the HP support assistant.  The HP guy told me all the audio settings are correct, and they are the same settings I used in windows 10.

I think this may be a bug in windows 11.