Well, messing around with the sound mixer seems to have done it. Steps:
Opened PChat. No sound.
Opened volume mixer (right click audio speaker icon in system tray).
The only two things are the device (speaker/hp) and applications, under which only "system sounds" was showing.
Right clicked speaker icon, clicked "Sounds".
Got an error:
Windows has detected that audio enhancements for the following device are causing problems:
Speaker/HP (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Would you like to disable Driver Enhancements for this device?
Yes / No
I clicked yes, and the normal sound options window popped up. It didn't seem useful, so I closed it.
Now, as I recall, I did not have sound in CoH at this point.
I right clicked the audio speaker icon, clicked "Troubleshoot sound problems." It opened a window I thought would take some time, so I read Titan forums, clicked a link to a sea shanty, and made sure YouTube on chrome was playing properly (it was).
At this point, I decided to see if Chrome would show up in the "applications" section of the sound mixer. It did... along with "
Name Not Available." Could this be CoH?
Apparently it was, because now I have sound.
However, the troubleshooting appears not to have finished. I now have a window open:
I clicked "cancel" and sound is still working, and Name Not Available is still in my sound mixer. So because I'm not entirely sure if I had sound immediately before the troubleshoot (after the disabling of driver enhancements) or after, I'm not sure what worked. I'm 75% certain I had no sound before the troubleshooting.