Sound keeps crashing.

[iMush]

Ok I had a problem this morning where the sound icon on the bar had a red X on it and said no sound output is installed.
I had this problem once before and re booted which I did this time and It worked. Sort of.
I have now a problem that I cannot change the volume of my sound. I can't open the volume controler via double clicking the icon and when I try to access the sound levels via the control pannle Windows explorer crashed ans says 'Windows Shell Common DLL is not responding'.
I don't understand the problem. Is it a corrupt file of a virus causing it?

 

[johngalt]

It might be - or it might be a simple file corruption due to hardware failure - or it might be file corruption due to a software failure.

See http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html?ltr=S to get an idea of what you should do to check your system.