Sound APPEARS to play...but doesn't

[geno93n0]

Well, to put it bluntly, I lost all my sounds. Or rather all my sound playback, as of a few minutes ago.

No system sounds, no music, nothing at all.

My computer hasn't been reformatted lately, and although the drivers are slightly outdated they've worked for all this time up until right now.

After the first reboot, C-Media Mixer/Volume Control didn't show on the taskbar, but Device Manager lists my device as working perfectly. The last time I heard sound was a few minutes ago, after exiting from my screensaver (which has sound).

It's definitely not the speaker, as plugging in my headphones into the jack doesn't produce any sound either.

Any ideas? I'll gladly post system specs or anything else that might be required if asked.

EDIT: could this be virus-related?

[pip22]

Check your sound output is not set to "Digital output Only":
1. Control Panel (classic view)->Sounds and Audio Devices.
2 Click the upper 'Advanced' button.
3. Under the first slider (on the left) click 'Advanced'.
4. The option "Digital Output Only" at the bottom must be UNticked