and then it just came back. That was several months ago. Sorry no help but maybe some hope.

plugged in speakers, and suddenly,, Setings told me the default speakers were the ones on my monitor (I didn't know my monitor HAD speakers), but i wasn't getting sond from them, and had no idea why. Never figured it out, but suddenly, I started getting sound through my speakers. Again, no clue what I did to make it happen.

Magic, maybe?

Right-click the speaker in the lower right corner and choose “Sound Settings.”

Verify the correct output is chosen.

You can call Microsoft support, they will remote in and help you out.
Also, go to settings/devices/ and check for trouble with sound devices there.

I'm getting really tired of watching videos with closed captioning. Believe me, I've tried everything.

Dell desktop. (Going into speaker settings).