Please help me with audio 3 seconds delay Pavilion x360 it's been a year

[dominelor]

Grettings! This post is the last cry for help. I've been trying to solve the problem with HP Pavilion for about a year and I simply can't take it anymore. I discovered after the purchase that my laptop has a sound delay of about 3 seconds whenever I use my headphones (this occurs ONLY with headphones used). So if I watch a video/work in Adobe Premiere, if I pause video/audio for more than 10 seconds - I would have to rewind everything because there is a 3-second delay. I tried everything: 1) I extensively researched the problem - that didn't help 2) I called HP, they try to fix something remotely  - that didn't help; 3) I asked IT to look into that - my system was wiped clean, everything reinstalled and updated, the problem got better - I could pause it for 40 seconds before the sound disappears and then again I have this 3-second delay. In other words, this didn't help 4) I send my laptop to HP to fix, explained a problem - they sent me back my laptop with the same problem. 5) I called them and told them to return my money or replace the laptop. The persuaded to send the laptop to them again, which I did. Of course, they didn't resolve the problem. 6) They sent me a new laptop, a different version of Pavilion. And lo and behold, this new laptop has THE SAME problem, but the delay is a mere 1 second (or probably less). 7) I tried to reinstall drivers - didn't help. 8 ) I tried installing Windows driver (there was a manual somewhere on HP forum) - it worked to the point, that there will be no delay in audio while I use headphones. However, there is no sound in speakers. I think this is the best solution I found so far if only I could have sound in speakers. 9) I tried unchecking the box "enable audio enhancement". That didn't help as well. 10) I tried fixing it manually with editing registry (as suggested on HP forum), but it is a temporary fix and the problem occurs again after restart. 

At this point, I don't even know what to do. I really don't. I told HP I would go to court before they sent me a brand new laptop, but I don't have time or strength to go through it anymore. I spent so much time talking to them/writing/sending the laptop. All want is a fix with this sound. It seems to me, an easy fix exists somewhere. I just don't know how to do it. The problem is somehow related to Realtek. If anyone could help me, I really appreciate your help. Thank you.

[Luki1412]

Yeah welcome to HP's sh*tty audio drivers.

This problem is on tons of laptops but Hp does nothing about it.

I have the same issue on mine.

If you change drivers to default microsoft ones, it starts working normally.

Reinstalling does nothing. Since you are just replacing broken drivers with same broken ones.

The turning on/off is a power saving feature. That registry tweak just makes it so it doesnt turn off therefore you wont have any delay turning it on(makes sense) but you are sacrificing a bit more power.

So our only options are the registry tweak and different drivers. Replacing drivers would sacrifice our sound quality so we have to modify registry. You can just add a task in task scheduler so the registry gets modified on every system start.

Dont expect HP to fix this as this has been going on for many people for a long while without a fix. They did nothing about it and offer people to do system tests for an issue that has been reported many times.

[Echo_Lake]

@Luki1412

Thank you for posting on HP Support Community.

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help,  I have a few troubleshooting steps we could try to fix the issue:  

I suggest you try the below steps to resolve the issue:

Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e96c-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\xxxx\PowerSettings

1. · where 'xxxx' is one of keys which contains  
2. · DriverDesc value 'Realtek High Definition Audio'.  
3. · Note: There may be multiple ones containing PowerSettings,  
4. · for example 'Nvidia High Definition Audio'.  
5. · You'll find there three binary values and set them:  
6. · ConservationIdleTime = ff ff ff ff;  
7. · IdlePowerState = 00 00 00 00;  
8. · PerformanceIdleTime = ff ff ff ff.  
9. · Default values are all 00 00 00 00 which disables power settings,  
10. · but driver overrides it with 0a 00 00 00  
11. · which is 10 seconds (0x0a = 10) and is by default in the driver. 
12. If the issue persists, please follow the suggestions of the HP Guided Troubleshooter:

Click here to access it (simply select your description of the issue from the bottom of the screen to gain access to the next set of steps that should resolve your concern).

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.

[dominelor]

Thank you for your reply! To be honest, I'm just exhausted battling over this. I'm going to send my laptop (with a 3-second delay) back to HP tomorrow. As I mentioned in the post, I just received a brand new laptop from them, but there is 1 second delay. It might be a minor problem but I'm often editing audio-interviews in Adobe. Even 1 second delay is a huge deal for me. 

I'm not sure if I want to tweak registry because when I suggested that to HP Escalation manager (yes, I tried to work on solutions with them, sending them a bunch of links from HP forums), they told me it can mess my computer and they will not be able to keep my warranty.

I'm very interested in changing Realtek drivers to Microsoft because apparently it worked for so many on this forum. However, when I tried it, I got no sound (both headphones and speakers). So I reversed it. I also tried fixing it on my previous laptop out of curiosity - no delay in headphones, but absolutely no sound in speakers. So I returned to default drivers. Now I'm just not sure what to do. Should I call Realtek or Microsoft and ask for their assistance? 

[dominelor]

Hello! As I explained in my original post, I already tried this solution. It is temporary. It reverses back once I restart my computer. Also, your Escalation manager advised me against using registry to fix this issue. 

[Echo_Lake]

@dominelor

I have brought your issue to the attention of an appropriate team within HP. They will likely request information from you in order to look up your case details or product serial number. Please look for a private message from an identified HP contact. Additionally, keep in mind not to publicly post personal information (serial numbers and case details) 

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Community.

[dominelor]

Thank you so much! I'm happy to provide an escalated case # pertaining to my previous laptop. The problem I have now is with a new one. I'm only interested at this point to find my own solution on HP forum because I spent at least 10 months trying to solve the issue with HP and I don't trust them with solving this. If anyone from HP can help me with a suggestion, I'll gladly take it. However, I'm not sending my laptop anywhere again.

[Luki1412]

Here's how I fixed the issue with my 1700€ hp laptop:

1. Uninstall HP drivers through Settings>Applications>Realtek Audio

2. Install clean realtek drivers from: https://github.com/alanfox2000/realtek-hda-release/releases

3. Install Hp audio control: https://github.com/alanfox2000/realtek-universal-audio-driver/releases

I have the same quality as before but without delay.

[dominelor]

I uninstalled my Realtek drivers and downloaded both versions (there were 2 drivers for HP). However, I cannot install them. It says "Access is denied" after trying to install it. Installation starts (black screen with green letters) and then after some time it runs into a problem.

[Luki1412]

You first need to uninstall hp realtek drivers as I have said. 

To make sure you removed all drivers, you can use this great tool - https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer/releases

Find drivers by realtek for audio only. Make sure its for audio. Realtek also makes card readers, network cards and other hardware so you might have other drivers from them. Drivers that are in use can't be removed unless you use Force delete.

Then, you let windows reinstall the windows update drivers. We need that because hp uses a specific driver apart from these to work correctly and also because it installs components so we know which components we need to update as well. Windows will do it when it notices a device without a driver. Either after reboot, or you can open Device Manager and press detect new devices. Since we will use device manager to install drivers, it wont install them unless it detects correct ID. You can always uninstall them and install the HP ones from hp support. This guide is for Windows 10, for older OSes you go to the link in the step 1. and download zip with FF00 in the name.

Next, we install new drivers. 

1. Go to https://github.com/alanfox2000/realtek-hda-release/releases and download latest drivers in a zip file with SR_RTK in the name. Extract the zip on your desktop into a folder with the same name as the zip file.

2. Now go to https://github.com/alanfox2000/realtek-universal-audio-driver/releases and download latest HP audio Control zip. Extract the zip on your desktop into a folder with the same name as the zip file.

3. Now go to https://github.com/alanfox2000/realtek-universal-audio-driver/wiki/Download#third-party 

Depending on your device, this could be different. Thats why we let windows reinstall the drivers. Go to Device Manager and Software Components. For mine its Xperi. Xperi - DTS Audio Effects Component, Again download the zip file and extract on the desktop with same name - so you know which folder is for which driver.

4. Since Windows reinstalled the devices, we now go through all devices in device manager and Update the driver using the files we downloaded and extracted. The SR_RTK folder will be used for Realtek(R) Audio. So you find Realtek(R) Audio under Audio drivers, you right click it and select Update drivers>Browse on this computer>Press Browse and find the SR_RTK folder and click ok, check the checkmark for the subfolder and press Next>The window should tell you that it updated the drivers for the device. If it didnt,windows didnt find the correct drivers for your device in that folder, so you need to download a different HP zip file on the website (step 1).

5. We do the same process for Software components like we did in step 4. For me its Realtek Audio Effects Component and Realtek Audio Universal Service. I used SR_RTK for both. And then for DTS Audio Effects Component I used the Xperi folder.

6. Audio should be working at this point. We just need to install HP Audio Control. So open the folder on your desktop where you extracted it and there should be a .appxbundle file. Double click it and select install. This app is for controlling volumes and effect etc. You can find it in the start menu under HP Audio Control

Thats it. The process might differ a bit for your device, however this solved issues for me with the delay. You can update these drivers by following this process again.

Thanks to alanfox2000 for the drivers. He downloads them from realtek's ftp so they are original, signed realtek drivers.

Thanks to lostindark for his great driver tool.

Hope this guide helped, it did help me.