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XPS 8940, Nvidia HD audio update ruined sound quality
My Dell XPS 8940 has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 card. For sound and my jack mic, I've been using the originally installed Realtek audio driver with Altec Lansing external speakers since I bought the XPS in April 2022. Sound quality was excellent. This morning, Windows did an automatic update of the Nvidia High Definition Audio driver (dated 1/19/23), which ruined the sound quality. For example, conversation in videos was garbled and mostly muted, and music MP3s sounded off, with the singing also badly muted, relative to the instruments. I checked the Settings > System > Sound and didn't find anything to adjust that might fix it.
So I went directly to the Nvidia site, where I downloaded and installed the latest driver (3/16/23) for the GeForce 3070, hoping that might fix the problem. It did not. Instead, it switched my audio to the Nvidia High Definition Audio, removed my Realtek, speakers, and jack mic from Settings > System > Sound, and also removed all three from the Device Manager. When I looked on C:, I found that NVIDIA had in fact uninstalled the Realtek driver completely. My sound was now coming exclusively through the horrible tinny speakers on my Dell 27" monitor, although at least it didn't sound muted or garbled (i.e., it sounded normal, just bad because the monitor speakers are bad).
To fix that new problem, I found the Realtek driver on the Dell site and reinstalled it. I was able to switch the sound and the mic back to Realtek and the jack mic in Settings > System > Sound and thus get sound through my speakers again, but the original sound problem came back. I tried turning "Audio Enhancements" on and off, which didn't help. I went into "More sound settings" and disabled all the NVIDIA High Definition Audio items, which also didn't help. My driver reinstall did not include the Realtek HD Audio Manager, which may or may not have been on my XPS before. I saw it mentioned on several tech support sites as a way to adjust the audio, but no one had a legitimate (i.e., not possibly sketchy) download link for it. Realtek does not appear to have current downloads on their own site any more. I tried the Windows troubleshooter, but it had no suggestions beyond turning "Audio Enhancements" on or off, which I'd already tried. I'm baffled.
Presumably I'm not the only person this has happened to. Any suggestions?
Chino de Oro
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March 24th, 2023 13:00
Something else causing the messed up sound. When integrated audio (Realtek) is enabled, Windows will always reinstall the driver, no matter what. So, for the Realtek part, just uninstall the current driver from Device Manager, reboot the machine and give a few minutes for reinstallation of driver. After proper installation, a popup from bottom right screen asking you to select and confirm sound settings, there are 2 choices, nVidia and Realtek, obviously, select the Realtek. All your previous connections should work again.
If you suspected the nVidia audio driver was the cause, go to Device Manager, select nVidia high definition audio => properties => driver => roll back driver. That should restore nvidia to previous (working) driver.
TimB968
4 Posts
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March 24th, 2023 13:00
After I updated the GeForce driver, Realtek was not enabled, because NVIDIA had completely removed it from the settings, the device manager, and my C: drive. So Windows was not going to reinstall it. And it was much longer than a few minutes before I reinstalled it myself, and during that time Windows never tried. As I noted above, I've reinstalled Realtek and selected it for output with my speakers, and the sound problem persists. Uninstalling and reinstalling it again seems superfluous.
The first NVIDIA update clearly did something to my system, because the sound was good before and bad after. I just don't know what it did. The problem persists even when I disable the NVIDIA audio drivers.
Chino de Oro
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March 24th, 2023 14:00
The Realtek audio driver on your system requires the Waves MaxxAudio Pro or Dell Optimizer application to be installed to have full functionality.
After installation, you may need to unplug and re-plug your speakers, headset, to trigger popup and selecting correct devices. That should fix the sound problem.
TimB968
4 Posts
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March 25th, 2023 07:00
As luck would have it, I have the MaxxAudio Pro already. After some plugging and unplugging and then shutting down last night and restarting this morning, things seem to be working correctly. Still kind of baffling, but hopefully the problem is fixed. Until the next NVIDIA update, I guess. And I still find it astonishing that they have the audacity not only to switch users' defaults without asking but also to uninstall a competing driver.
Anyway, thanks for the responses.