Windows 10: W10 caused sound to not work, now sound card no longer recognized

When I first went from W8.1 to W10, everything worked except the sound. Now after several updates, the icon speaker in task bar has an x by it, and when I hover mouse over icon the message states that "no audio output device is installed." When I go to device manager, there is no longer a listing for sound.
My thinking is that perhaps the sound had been switched off in bios. When I attempted to go into bios at startup, there is no longer a screen that allows me to get into bios.
So, I have at least two issues that I need direction.

:)

 

Windows 10 Upgrade and re-install after MOBO change

I currently have a PC with Windows 10 installed on it. The main components of the PC are working OK, but there is an issue with the sound card element of the motherboard, which means the sound is not working anymore. I am now looking at replacing the MOBO
to fix this problem, but believe that if I do this, then the W10 version will no longer be activated.

Is this correct? If so, how do I replace the MOBO without having to buy a new licence for W10?

I have 6 PC's all running W10, but the one affected is my gaming rig, so having no sound is an issue and the MOBO needs to be changed, prior to anything else going wrong with it.

Do I have to purchase W10 or can I swap the board, install the drive with the OS on and hope that it works?

Any advice is appreciated, prior to me doing anything

 

Creative Console Launcher Windows 10

#1 is definitely still an issue. For me it's actually been since the 9926 build.

Something is happening when Win 10 encounters the device and installs the driver package on each new build.

The driver installs and the sound does work, but the various software components no longer recognize the installed card. Most people want the Console Launcher, but other components such as the Volume Panel don't work either. The error says "No supported
hardware exists."

It's not so much breaking the software as it is somehow reassigning the identity of the sound card so that the software no longer recognizes it. The uninstall/reinstall of the older drivers (though not Creative's own driver, the Daniel K drivers) correctly
assigns the device identity and the software components work again. (Or more accurately the ID is what the components are expecting.)

Also the binaries, themselves, don't seem to be the issue. I've gotten it to work with different driver binary versions of the driver. It's something the install package itself is doing (a registry setting, an .ini file somewhere) that causes the components
to no longer recognize the device.

Not at home now, but I'll try tomorrow to just do a driver update on the card itself via device manager and just point it at a different binary. That may tell us if it's in the released driver package or Windows 10 itself.

 

I had the sound problem initially, this was resolved for me, by installing the latest GPU drivers as mine is hooked up by HDMI. And Windows 10 seems to have a passion for installing old video drivers.
How is your audio hooked up?

 

I do not HDMI. My audio has two audio and one mic mini jacks. This is on a laptop. Now my sound card is being recognized, however, there is still a problem. In device manager, there is a triangled exclamation point. Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221i is the name of card.