Audio start delay problem, first seconds of audio are silent after ~30 seconds of silence

[dmcasas]

This laptop is new, installed a few days ago with W10 Home 64.

The issue is:

Whenever I want to play something with sound, no matter if it's a YouTube video on Chrome, Edge or a desktop app, about the first two seconds of sound will be silent, thus missed, so I have to rewind or replay whatever I was playing to hear it again. Then the sound is fine, until there's no sound for about 30 seconds. Then it will happen again, when I want to play something, it will start to play muted for the first second or two, then continue normally. This is very annoying because I have to constantly rewind every new video I watch, and I work with music and my notation software will do the same thing, no sound for the first second or two after the computer has been silent for half a minute. This happens either with the computer plugged to power supply or with battery mode. This doesn't seems to happen 100% of the times, but like 80% to say the least.

Things I've already done:

· Contacted HP Support Chat: HP Tech updated my BIOS and reinstalled my drivers but it didn't fix the problem.

· Checking every possibilty under 'HP Omen audio control' (enabled/disabled enhancements, enabled/disabled multistreaming, enabled/disabled mic noise cancel, etc), nothing helps

· Checked every possibility under Windows audio device settings (changed bitrate, enabled/disabled exclusive mode, enabled/disabled spatial sound, etc) (option to disable hardware acceleration doesn't show in this computer), nothing helps.

· Checked and reinitialized Windows Audio and Realtek Audio Service under Services, no help

· Cleaned the drive and reinstalled Windows 10 from scratch, let it update and install drivers by itself, I didn't install anything myself. No help

· Tried uninstalling Realtek drivers and downloading them from Realtek site, those still make the problem happen.

· Tried uninstalling Realtek drivers and downloading them from HP site, official recommended drivers for my laptop, no help.

· Looked into windows energy management settings to see if speakers were going into power saving or anything similar, but there's nothing like that there.

· Looked into the BIOS for anything related to speakers or audio but couldn't find anything, didn't touch anything.

The only thing that seems to fix the problem is uninstalling Realtek drivers and then installing Windows High Definition Audio drivers. But with these drivers I can't use 'stereo mix', and windows will try to update them to Realtek again when I search for updates.

I haven't tried Windows7 in this laptop but that should'nt be an option since HP pamphlet included says that this computer does not officially support W7 or W8.

It feels like the laptop goes on 'audio power saving mode' after a time of silence, so when there is sound again they 'wake up' but they need almost 2 seconds to do it. This is a huge problem for me as I work with audio, I can't be missing the first seconds of audio every time, I bought this laptop to have a powerful and portable audio workstation but now it almost feel like I just threw more than $1000 into the sewer.

My guess is the problem is related to Realtek audio drivers since as I said before it doesn't seem to happen with Microsoft default ones, but those deprive me of stereo mix function which I need and also Windows Update will override them with Realtek drivers sooner or later anyway. My other guess is that the problem is related to laptops and some form of their energy management, since the problem gives the feeling that audio goes into power saving mode and then wakes up.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be specific and tell everything I've already tried.

I'd really appreciate a fix for this. I don't care about HP Omen audio control cool enhancements or if the speakers are bang&olufsen, I just need a plain audio system which allows the computer to play sound whenever it has to be played, without delays or interruptions, either with laptop built-in speakers or with headphones or second pair of speakers.

Thanks for reading, I'll wait for responses.

[dmcasas]

Update: Installed HP support assistant software, followed all the steps that it recommended, no help, problem is still there

[dmcasas]

edit- ignore this post, I accidentally posted the same update twice

[dmcasas]

Update:

I just installed drivers from Realtek website while I had a second pair of speakers plugged into the headphone jacks. The drivers installed properly for these speakers and the problem is gone, BUT only when I use an external device on the headphone jack, now the built-in speakers of the laptop won't work, even when there's nothing plugged in.

When I installed Realtek drivers this time now the enhancements tab appeared in windows audio settings (it didn't before), and there I can check "Disable all enhancements" and "Immediate mode". Now I'm not getting the HP Omen audio control by Bang&Olufsen icon, which I believe have to do something with this problem. Maybe it has enhancements by default that cause the playback delay?
I'm not sure who to blame, maybe HP, maybe Bang&Olufsen, maybe Realtek, but this is very annoying. I'd like HP to look into this because this is not a normal thing.

I want to be able to use both my built-in speakers and my external devices without audio issues or delays, is that so much to ask?
Right now I just have two options:
· Be able to use all the speakers but get audio delay at start whenever I play something. (By installing HP Recommended drivers)
· Be able to use only external audio devices but get sound right. (By installing Realtek site drivers while second speakers are plugged)

[dmcasas]

I'm 99% sure this problem has something to do with Realtek version for HP Omen, since this only happens when I can see in the icon tray the "OMEN audio settings" icon. Disabling enhancements there does nothing, as I already stated on my first post

[dmcasas]

Summary and last post for today:

· If I install audio driver by the HP Support Assistant software, it installs the Realtek drivers with the "OMEN audio settings" feature. This way, built-in speakers work fine, but when I use headphones or any other speakers plugged to the headphone jack, there's a 2 second delay before sound start playing. To avoid confusion, I'm not saying that audio is out of sync, I'm saying that audio output is silent for the first 2 seconds, then plays correctly. This happens almost everytime after the computer has been silent for 30 seconds or more. So almost every time I'm going to watch a video or play something on my computer, I won't hear the first two seconds of audio so I have to rewind.

· If I install audio driver by the Realtek website, "OMEN audio settings" doesn't show up, but I don't experience the problem above. But this way I can't use the built-in speakers, they won't make a sound.

· If I install Windows High Definition Audio driver by Windows, every speaker sounds fine and I don't get the problems above, but this way I can't use the "stereo mix" feature which I absolutely need, and Windows or HP will eventually find "better" drivers and update them.

I'm not sure whether this is W10 fault, HP fault, Realtek fault, or Bang&Olufsen fault, but I know that I just spent around $1000 on a new computer and I think this kind of problems with audio are unnaceptable today.

If I don't get a fix for this soon I'll have to return the computer because I just can't work like this.

Sorry for posting so many times but this problem is frustrating and I'm kinda dissapointed with this.

[dmcasas · Accepted solution]

Just found an apparent fix to the audio delay problem with HP recommended drivers, by editing the registry as said in this post:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/3-seconds-delay-to-play-sounds-through-headphone/td-p/6...

It looks like it's what I said some posts earlier, some kind of power saving feature disables the audio after a 30 second silence, then it has to "wake up" whenever you play something, even if the laptop is plugged to power. I don't think this feature helps with battery life, so I don't get the point of it, but I'd like to know a reason why this feature exists, if it doesn't exit with Windows High Definition Audio drivers...

Anyway, it seems that the registry edit in said post overrides the power saving mode for the realtek driver, so this problem is not happening anymore. All speakers work fine, no audio delay or silences, and I can use stereo mix. I'll come back if I have any problem, but for now it looks everything's fine.

My apologies if I looked outrageous, but this problem was really driving me nuts, and HP seems to be clueless about it.

[msixpackabs]

I didn't see HPs response on this matter.

Just bought a new computer, facing the same problem.

Very disappointed...

Thank you for sharing this as it helped me as well.