Win 10 Upgrade from Win 7 | Audio Issues | Dell XPS 14Z

I have no idea why the laptop audio levels have dipped so much.

Hello. Your laptop has Realtek audio hardware on the motherboard, and the laptop left the factory with a Realtek audio driver installed. When you changed operating systems, Microsoft removed the Realtek audio driver and replaced it with a Windows native audio driver.

The native driver is a basic bare-bones driver and it lacks some of the features of the Realtek driver, so you are experiencing the differences between the 2 drivers.

I read many posts about a similar problem and realized Dell Support has not been able to fix it so far.

Please go to the XPS 14z L412z support page and read the notice there. Dell cautions owners of that model that Win10 is not supported on it. Folks who install Win10 anyway might find that some things do not work the same as they did with the supported operating system.

What is this non-sense??

It is illogical to blame Dell for a problem caused by choices made by you and Microsoft.

I upgrade to Windows 10 because Windows keeps prompting me to do it.

Microsoft gave you bad advice in prompting you to install an unsupported operating system. The best solution would be to revert to Win7, but if you prefer to remain with Win10 here are a couple of things you can try. No guarantees that these will fix your issue.

First, try to install the Windows 8 version of the Realtek audio driver. When Win10 first came out, Microsoft claimed that most Win8 drivers would work with it.

If it will not install, then install the Win7 version of the Realtek driver using compatibility mode. Instructions:

1. Download and save the audio driver to your desktop or any convenient location on the hard drive.
2. Double click on the new folder to extract (unzip) the driver files.
3. The extractor wizard will create a new folder for the driver files. It will be at "c:\dell\drivers\xxxxxx". Write down the exact location that the wizard creates.
4. If the driver begins to install automatically, halt (cancel) the installation.
5. Browse to the driver files on the hard drive (the location you wrote down).
6. Find the "setup.exe" file.
7. Right click on setup.exe to open the context menu.
8. Select the Properties.
9. Select the Compatibility tab.
10. Check the box "run this program in compatibility mode for"... Win7.

That is the same driver that you had when you were running Win7, so the audio should be the same as it was then. However, if it will not install, or if it installs but still does not fix the problem, then the best thing you can do to fix it is to revert to the supported operating system.

Hi Jim,

Thank you for an elaborate response. This is the best response I have seen to this problem so far from all the forums I have browsed through regarding this issue.

I would have loved to implement the solution you gave me and I am reasonably sure, it would have solved my problem because I have dealt with a similar solution and it has worked in Win 7 but I did not know that the a similar trick would do the job in Win 10.

However yesterday evening, I tried rebooting my laptop to implement this solution and boom! the laptop does not boot but instead throws up an error which says "Kernel auto boost lock acquisition with raised irql?" The laptop was initially booting up once in 5 attempts but now its far worse and boots once in 20-25 attempts.

I have read up extensively over this issue and have no idea why this error happens and none of the forums where I have read resolve this issue or put out the right solution for this one.

I would appreciate any help over this issue from you or any friend at Dell. This has resulted in the laptop being absolutely junk right now and am planning to move back to Win 7 as the last solution!!

Best, Vikas

Kernel auto boost lock acquisition with raised irql

Vikas, that sort of thing is outside of my area of expertise, which is audio. When I googled it, the first thing that came up was an article that said there is a conflict between Windows 10 and an Atheros wireless network adapter. The XPS 14z and 15z models had an Atheros adapter. The way to test, to see if you have this particular issue, is to turn off wireless, and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then try to update the driver, or remove it from the system and let Windows find a driver. Here is the article.

am planning to move back to Win 7 as the last solution!!

That's what I would do.