Realtek drivers no longer working/playing audio

[Affiliate60]

Heyo! This is my first post. I am currently stuck on this problem.

My laptop recently ran into the problem of not playing audio (from delaying by two seconds). It is a HP Pavilion with Realtek drivers, which are known for having this problem, apparently. I have tried everything from updating/reinstalling the drivers to doing system file checking and other troubleshooting methods, except resetting Windows. I currently have Microsoft's HD Audio drivers installed, but they don't sound as good and have a popping sound when something starts or stops playing. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks!

[praveen196]

@Affiliate60 Welcome to HP Community!

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 

• where 'xxxx' is one of keys which contains 

• DriverDesc value 'Realtek High Definition Audio'. 

• Note: There may be multiple ones containing power settings, 

• for example, 'Nvidia High Definition Audio'. 

• You'll find there three binary values and set them: 

• ConservationIdleTime = ff ff ff ff; 

• IdlePowerState = 00 00 00 00; 

• PerformanceIdleTime = ff ff ff ff. 

• Default values are all 00 00 00 00 which disables power settings, 

• but driver overrides it with 0a 00 00 00 

• which is 10 seconds (0x0a = 10) and is by default in the driver. 

  

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). 

From <https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Audio/There-is-an-audio-lag-on-my-laptop/m-p/7026408#M99522>  

Keep us posted,
If you would like to thank us for our efforts to help you, 

Give us a virtual high-five by clicking the 'Thumbs Up' icon below, followed by clicking on the "Accept as solution" on this post, 

Have a great day!

[Affiliate60]

Hello Praveen196,

I tried this, but by the time I did, it was too late - I am getting no audio when the driver is installed. I am not sure what to do now. I currently have Microsoft's Audio driver installed right now though.

[asmita6658]

Hi @Affiliate60

Thanks for replying. Please try testing the hardware - 

1) Shutdown the computer. 
2) Turn the computer back on again and repeatedly tap on the ESC until a Startup menu appears. 
3) Press F2 once. 
4) Go to Component test. 
5) From the list, run the Audio test. 

[Affiliate60]

Hello Asmita,

This was tried already.... there were no problems.

[asmita6658]

@Affiliate60

Please back-up the data and try re-installing the operating system -

1. Shutdown the computer. 
2. Turn the computer back on again and repeatedly tap on the ESC until a Startup menu appears. 
3. Press F11 once for System Recovery. 
4. Choose the Keyboard Layout. 
5. Click on Troubleshoot. 
6. Go to Recovery Manager and click on System Recovery. 
Note : Back-up all your data as System Recovery will delete everything that you had saved or installed on the computer. 
 

Let me know. 

[Affiliate60]

Hello all,

So I went ahead and tried reinstalling my Realtek driver, but with different steps, and it now works properly!

Here's what I did:

1. I went on one of Realtek's webpages that contain links to their HD Audio Driver installers, and downloaded the correct one for my laptop.
2. I uninstalled the other driver (with the option "Remove the driver software for the device"), and then ran the installer.
3. The installer is from 2017, so it installed a driver made within that year. After doing that, my audio started working again, but there was still the delay problem.
4. Out of curiosity, I tried updating the already installed driver in Device manager through the auto-update option, which installed the up-to-date driver, and rebooted, and things still worked.
5. I did the registry modification, and the delay problem seems to be gone now.

One thing I discovered through doing this is that the drivers are not completely uninstalled. The configurations for the audio drivers that were installed are still in the registry it seems (and likely the files as well), so I'm going to have to find a way to get rid of that.

Now, onto my reply:

Asmita,

---

@asmita6658 wrote:

Please back-up the data and try re-installing the operating system -

---

That may fix the problem, but was also the step I was trying to avoid as I do not currently have the resources for all the data I'll need to backup for this. I was going to plan to do that as a last resort, but I'm not sure if I'll need to do it now (because of the above). (I'm going to hold off on marking this thread as resolved for a bit.) What do you think?

Afilliate60

[praveen196]

@Affiliate60

Thank you for the update.

As you have stated, Please take the backup and Install the operating system and check.

If you are getting any error message, please capture and get back to us. We will help you.

Keep us posted,

If you would like to thank us for our efforts to help you, 

Give us a virtual high-five by clicking the 'Thumbs Up' icon below, followed by clicking on the "Accept as solution" on this post, 

Have a great day!