HP EliteDesk 800 G3 - Horrible Sound issues on Windows 10

[tsmith2]

Also having this issue, very annoying.  Tried the driver rollback as suggested and that worked for a few days but reverted itself, the new driver install didn't work for me either.  hitting the "restore defaults" button in the audio application fixes it for me, but have to do it every day (at least it doesn't need a restart to take effect)

[620turbo]

For your information everyone, I have called HP today complaining about the lack of response and timely solution to this issue.

They are aware of it and are apparantly working towards a fix.

I am today being given access to an updated driver which is still in Beta testing and due for release November, which should fix this issue.

I will report back in a day or so with results.

[620turbo]

Mine is now resolved.

Unfortunatelu, the resolution was not straightfirward and I spent around two hours on the phone with HP support.

The technician installed the beta connexant sound driver which is due for general release in November. It still did not work. We then played about removing the existing sound and audio drivers and devices in device manager in safe mode.

We then played about with plugging the 3.5MM jack in the front and rear port of the machine, noting when the small dialogue box appeared which asks what you have plugged in - Line out, Headphones, etc.

We eventually got the dialogue box to appear when we plugged the 3.5MM jack in the rear of the machine, which it was not doing previously. The sound then is fine once you select Line Out on this dialogue box.

The machine now holds decent sound after 10 reboots so for me this issue is now resolved.

Good luck!

[Tony_Gee]

How did you get the dialogue box to appear when you plugged the 3.5MM jack in the rear of the machine.

[DavidM-238]

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@Tony_Gee wrote:

How did you get the dialogue box to appear when you plugged the 3.5MM jack in the rear of the machine.

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I think this is something forthcoming in the next driver update that 620turbo mentioned above, which is still in development.

[620turbo]

The dialogue box should come up with the old driver.

It comes up when plugging something into the front jack but only intermittently comes up when plugging something into the rear jack, which seems to be a part of the overall problem.

[StevenAl]

My company has ordered over 100 of these pc's (G3  800 SFF) and we are experiencing the same issue (very thin auio) and also not getting a stereo output.  

We've tried all of the jacks and each of the output modes available from the popup, made sure there is no voltage bleeding into the usb rail (there never was), not to mention a half-dozen drivers and reboots.  This appears to be either a problem with hardware quality control/uniformity or driver development.  

Hopefully HP will fix this issue soon or we may consider using our Dell vendor when it comes time to order pc's again.

Is anyone else also not able to hear two distinct stereo channels?  

[Maui_Tech_Gurus]

Also I have another HP Spectre X2 laptop having a super bad thin sound .. and it also has Conexant SmartAudio drivers; and it branded with the Bang & Olufsen (B&O) which is a designer audio/visual outfit from Denmark. Well odd that adding B&O sound you'd think the sound would be better than normal, not skinny thin poor bad sound quality. Really a disaster for the HP/B&O partnership..  too bad.  

[Eddy_G]

I just received an Elitebook 840 G4 from work and immediately noticed the tinny sound and non-existent bass, the same speakers that gave me great sound and bass on the previous machine now sound like shi-t.     First I upgraded the driver to the latest version which was released in September, hoping that HP had listened to their customers and pressured Conexant to implement a fix...but that didn't happen.

Then, as others did, I upgraded the audio driver to the native Win 10 "High Definition Audio Device" driver and now have the same good sound as on the old machine.   When upgrading you need to select "Browse my computer for driver software", then select "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer", at the "selct the driver you want to install" deselect "show compatible hardware" then select Microsoft and the "High Definition Audio Device" driver.  Windows will whine that you are trying to install an non-compatible driver and warn you of dire consequences, ignore it and install the driver.

So far restarts have not reinstalled the Conenxant driver, now I'm waiting to to see if the next automatic update replaces the windows driver with a Conenxant driver.

HP, HOW COULD YOU SPEC SUCH A BAD DRIVER LIKE THIS ON A HIGH-END MACHINE?!  SHAME ON YOU!

[mturman]

The following bulletin was just released by HP 11/15/17:  Advisory: HP Business Desktops - Poor Audio Quality (No Bass) (c05836795)

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05836795?hprpt_id=HPGL_ALERTS_1991273&jumpid=em_alerts_us-us_...