HP EliteDesk 800 G3 - Horrible Sound issues on Windows 10

[mturman]

Updated link and driver information;

Critical Driver Alert - Aug 13 2017

Conexant High Definition Audio Driver for DT (Sustaining) (ver 8.65.225.0 Rev.A)

Products: HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Small Form Factor PC, HP ProDesk 680 G3 Microtower PC, HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Tower PC, HP EliteDesk 800 65W G3 Desktop Mini PC, HP EliteDesk 800 35W G3 Desktop Mini PC

OS: Windows

Description: This package provides the Conexant High Definition Audio Driver for supported desktop models that are running a supported operating system.

[A-A-RON]

Thank you so much mturman that link to the newest driver fixed the issue for me on our EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF!  Not sure why HP is not listing this driver yet on their website so that it is widely available.

Anyway again!

[620turbo]

Just taken delivery of a Prodesk 400 G4 and rejected it due to the tinny, mono sounding, distorted audio issue.

If I plugged my external speakers into the front headphone 3.5mm jack, a prompt came up and asked what you are plugging in, if you select headphones or line out the sound is good. I dont want my wire hanging out the front of the machine when there is a dedicated jack on the rear.

I tried mucking around with the (absolutely shocking and written by a 5 year old) HP audio application and switching on and off Multistreaming and this worked for the rear jack until the machine rebooted.

Anyway, I rejected the machine and another identical one arrived with the same issue.

I have just spent hours mucking around and happened to come across this thread.

So I signed up to say thank you to everyone who posted on this thread and especially to the user who posted the link to the lastest drivers, which for some reason HP have still not made available!!!

Come on HP for gods sake, this issue is going back for months now, get it sorted for gods sake and get yourselves organised. It is just not good enough when we are supporting you paying for what are supposed to be premium buisiness products.

[620turbo]

Update, this driver does not work properly either!!

Sound is low volume and tinny when playing on external 2.1 speakers via the rear 3.5mm jack.

Go into the Mickey Mouse HP audio software, Enhanced Experience tab, turn on multistreaming, it will sound normal for a few second then go back to tinny again. Switch off multistreaming and it will then sound normal until the next reboot.

Can someone from HP start sorting this out or give some sort of update please?

[Hal_L]

Here is what I know and did:  I have the Creators Edition of Win 10.  No matter what I try, I always end up with the Windows-supplied version 10.0.15063.502 Driver, dated 7/27/2017.  The updated 8.65.225.0 Rev.A driver recently posted to the forum appears to install, but on reboot, I have the Microsoft driver and can't even roll back to anything. 

With the 10.0.15063.502 driver,  If I set the HP Audio Control Panel equalizer bass sliders all the way up I get not quite acceptable sound, not even for a product intended for business, not home, use.

I bought and installed a basic sound card (Asus Xonar DGX, about $35).  Things sound so much better now.  Unfortunately, the EliteBook G3 tower does not seem to have a standard (or even documented) plug for the front panel mic and speakers.  So I can't plug the front panel sockets into the sound card mic/headphone header.  Instead, I'm plugging my headphone into my speaker unit.  It works, but I'm not a happy camper.

[620turbo]

Its is some sort of software issue.

If I spend time mucking around, playing with the multistreaming toggle switch, etc, I suddenly get bass and a normal full range signal out the rear 3.5MM jack.

The front 3.5MM jack seems to work fine but I dont want a wire plugged in the front.

Anyone from HP going to look into this?

Anyone from HP care?

[BrendonKS]

I recently purchased an Elitedesk mini 800 G3 and quickly discovered a problem with my audio driver as well.

I am using an old Altec Lansing set of computer speakers (2 satellite and subwoofer) that work fine with my Lenovo laptop which is also running Windows 10.  Like most of you, I realized that I was getting almost no sound from the subwoofer.  The sound wasn't horrible, just no bass.

As I was messing around with the settings in the Windows System > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > HP Audio Controls, I discovered that when I click the "Restore Defaults" button on the lower left hand corner of the "General" tab, I would get the sound, including bass, that I expect from the computer speakers.  The problem is that each time I shut down or restart, I have to go through this process again.  I thought it was going to take the change permanently once or twice when I could hear the bass after restart, but within a few seconds there was a sort of reset and the bass was gone again. 

I kind of obsess over this kind of thing because I know this is not working the way it should--I haven't had this hassle with any other computer that I have owned.  I'm not the most computer savvy guy on the block, but of all the things that should be plug and play, it should be plugging in a set of speakers and getting some decent sound.  I tried disabling the Conexant HD Audio driver, but I have not been able to find a generic driver and somehow, Windows manages to reinstall the Conexant driver again anyway.  I did download a driver update from the HP site (I think it was dated May, 2017) but that really did make the audio sound worse, so I rolled back the driver.

I'll probably call HP support soon, but I'm not expecting too much based on the other posts.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading the posts here to see if HP does come up with a fix.

Thanks--

Brendon

[jvenda]

Same thing for me with a brand new €900 Prodesk 400 G4.
Just bough a cheapass 6€ dongle (USB to 3.5mm jack) that works perfectly (as suggested previously by user Bashal - thank you, by the way!).

This is absolutely ridiculous, HP. A brand new and expensive computer needs a chinese-store-cheap dongle to provide the simplest task of "powering" your PC Speakers decently.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame.

Not happy at all with this.

[DavidM-238]

Having the same issue.  TERRIBLE distortion and over-amplification, no bass, just awful... HP should be absolutely ashamed that this hasn't been fixed yet.  Trying the Multistream-on-off trick seems to give some relief for the no-bass thing, but the distortion is still terrible.  Can't turn the volume up.  If this shakes out to be a hardware issue, I think some rebates are in order.......  I've had cheap-o laptops with FAR better soundcards/software than this.

[DanTheGreat]

Another disgruntled EliteDesk 800 G3 owner here. The sound quality from the Conexant drivers is just horrific. I honestly have no idea how this driver got through their quality control (if there is any) and was released to the public.