The title sounds insane even to myself, but this is an actual issue.
Few weeks ago we connected a set of Microlab FC330 speakers to a computer replacing the previous speakers.
The user soon complained that the new speakers mute themselves every 10-30 minutes. Upon inspecting the problem, it turned out that the windows system volume gets turned down to 0. It's also not that consistent on timing. It mostly turns down when the user is actively using the computer - we once left it overnight and it was still loud on the next morning. But there are also exceptions where nobody is touching the machine but it still mutes.
My colleague who investigated the problem reported that the windows volume also behaved somewhat bizarre. Seemingly turning up few units above zero it was still silent and only started to sound on some 7 or so units of volume. However, when turning down and up manually again, the sound remains audible at anything above 0.
Initially we assumed it's impossible and the problem just coincided with the speaker swap. We removed Lenovo audio driver wrapper, reinstalled Realtek, tried swapping keyboard, but nothing helped. Then we connected the speakers to another machine and the problem remained there.
After all it appears that the problem is indeed within the speakers. How is this even possible? The speakers are connected via 3.5mm jack, can speakers send any commands and is anyone listening for those commands on the computer side??
We tried the speakers on Lenovo machines having 10EC 0662 audio device. But these were the only things in common - they have different OSes (Win7 and Win10) and different motherboards (chipsets are H81 and Q85).