Windows 10: Audio and start menu randomly stop working

I never had this problem when I was using Windows 8.1. This problem mostly occurs when I'm playing a game (Dota 2, Battlefield 4, Fallout 3, etc) and sometimes when I was just browsing the web, watching youtube videos. The sound will just disappear, although the program just works normally (kinda like the speaker got unplugged). When this happens, I can't left click the audio icon (but right clicking it works) and the start and search menu don't work too. When I tried to test the sound it will show an error, can't play or something like that.

I've googled and tried many solutions, and many are basically reinstalling driver. The problem goes away after restarting my laptop, but the problem will just occur again sometime. This is extremely annoying as I play online a lot.

I'm using ASUS PU451LD and it uses Conexant SmartAudio driver. My OS is Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

:)

 

Sound randomly stops working in Windows 10 / Also Start bar stops working.

Randomly my sound stops. I switch my default device to my headphones and it works, but eventually that randomly stops too. When I try to test the audio, it says it cannot because they are being used by another device.

Additionally, my start bar doesn't work sometimes. I can hover over things and select from their menus, but clicking on icons like my notification icon, the search bar or the start button do nothing.

Please feel free to ask me any additional information you might need to help me figure this issue out. Thanks.

 

Start Screen Jumps Up After Update

I'm concerned if I do a system restore then I won't be patched against these latest cyber threats?

In the meantime I unpinned every live tile from the start menu but still the start menu pops up randomly. When it does it stops whatever application is running at the time. i.e. minimises YouTube, stops video or audio playing so you have to start it again.
Is there anyone else also experiencing this? Ironically though the 1 minute sleep issue seems to have stopped but now it has been replaced by an equally annoying and disruptive issue unfortunately.