Greetings.
For around a week now, my laptop, running windows 7, has been experiencing total sound cut off at random intervals. For example, let's say I'm watching a video on youtube, it will have sound for a few minutes, then suddenly, I'll lose all sounds system wide. The odd thing is, if I close the tab the video is in, I'll have sound returned. Same for exiting out of a game or closing my media player.
From what I can tell, it seems to trip most often when many sounds are playing at once, or high volume sound is played. Although it can cut at low volume and low quantity as well, just less commonly. The longer the laptop is running, the more common cuts are as well.
Additionally, plugging and unplugging a pair of headphones in will immediatly return sound, although it will again cut out at shorter intervals each time. Purely using headphones for sound results in no cutouts, but I would much rather not have to use headphones constantly while using my laptop. Most of the information I've found online regarding possible solutions has involved messing with the sound drivers, and I am not confident enough in my ability to perform such an action without causing further problems to do so without a clear, concise, step by step guide.
As I am not well versed in computer literacy, beyond basic operation and troubleshooting, please tell me how to provide any additional information about my system and setup you may require.