Getting no sound, not sure if hardware or software issue

Okay so I have a Windows 8, Dell laptop with an intel pentium cpu2127U 1.9ghz processor, 4GB of RAM, 64 bit operating system. recently the sound stopped working. I restarted the computer and the sound came back but once I went to youtube and tried to play a video the sound went out again. Maybe stopped when I plugged in my earphones but for the life of me I can't get it back on. I don't really know what is happening or what the problem is. All drivers are up to date and all devices still show up in the device manager. Any ideas?

 

Hey guys, I found and fixed the problem. Turns out some jiggle-monkey (probably me) ended up turning on a feature of the audio that turns off the audio devices if there isn't a sound event within 30 seconds. I turned that off and boom got my sound back. Why would that even be an option? oh well If a moderator could delete this thread so it doesn't waste precious space on the boards that would be great. Thanks.

 

The thread stays. There might be some other Dell laptop owner suffering from the same problem and your 2nd post will lead the way to a solution.