XPS 13 (9300) REALTEK AUDIO DRIVER PROBLEM

Can someone explain to me why Dell is using this terrible maxxaudio garbage? It has caused unending headaches and bugs for me. For the love of god, please let's not ship devices with unnecessary bloat and stick to a clean experience. We don't need MaxxAudio, just deliver audio drivers that "work" without unnecessary additional applications. 

PS I have the XPS 13 2-in-1 7390 and have similar problems.

New drivers are out now FYI

Does anyone have a link to the new drivers?

Just got to the support page and it should be under the drivers for your system.

Unfortunately, installing the new driver doesn't solve the problem. I installed it and it worked! I was happy until the next day and a fresh boot--no sound.

I can also confirm that the new Realtk drivers still do NOT solve the issue.

Big disappointment from Dell, especially for such an expensive machine such as the new Dell XPS 13 9300

Just got my xps 13 9300 yesterday. Made sure everything was updated. Still having issues with the sound. It can be cut out at any time. A reboot usually solves the problem. 

I concur. I thought the update fixed the problem, but the same issue persists. While a restart does fix the problem, it is really annoying. Hopefully they release another realtek update soon.

I do have a workaround for folx, but you're not going to like it--and it's not perfect. First (here's the part you're not going to like), you need to factory restore the laptop (obviously, you'll need to have your data backed up). Running Dell Command | Update and doing a Driver Restore MIGHT accomplish the same thing--but I haven't tried that so I can't verify if that works. It might be worth a try as a much easier alternative.

Second, once you're booted back into Windows--before you do anything else, run the Support Assist. You can run all the tests but the most important one is the Driver Updates. Let it do it's thing. It should update around 6 drivers including the all important Realtek driver. Once you've done that you can start the process of reinstalling all your software. You'll notice that once you've done this, not all the Windows Updates work. This is, in part, because the Dell drivers you've installed are in place and Windows keeps trying to replace them with old Microsoft Drivers. Anyway, even though you'll be missing some Windows updates, everything will work--sound, video, everything except Windows Update. Hope this helps some people. It's crazy that Dell makes us do these things--for a brand new laptop, no less; but once it's working it's a wonderful machine. Too bad they didn't put a bit more work into how the drivers are handled.

I have another workaround for now 

• Uninstall the Waves app (look for Maxx in the task manager, uninstall, then look for Waves -- I'm not sure which one it was)
• Uninstall the Realtek driver. There's another realtek driver to uninstall too.
• In total 3 apps / drivers to uninstall.
• When you're done, reboot and Windows will use the default audio driver (thankfully it's just a Realtek HD audio device, that any OS can deal perfectly with).

Then we can try again when Dell releases Realtek drivers which fix the issues.

Unfortunately, this means that you'll get worse sound quality on speakers (the Maxx app helps a lot with the bass boost and clarity boost settings inside). But it's just how it is, that's the price you have to pay for a lack of borders, sounds coming from the top of the case would be much better but there's no room.

You can also play with the Windows integrated audio enhancements to restore some of the glory to the speakers:

• Right click on the sound icon on the taskbar
• Select "Open sound settings"
• Then "Sound Control Panel" (link on the right)
• Double click on "Speakers", then go to the "Enhancement" tab.
• Tick the Bass Boost. Click on Settings.
• Set a rather high frequency (200 Hz maybe?) and a 3 or 6 dB boost maybe. Anyway play with those.

Note that you can do the same with headphones to improve the rendering with low-end ones.

Simple workaround

• Uninstall the Waves app (look for Maxx in the task manager, uninstall, then look for Waves -- I'm not sure which one it was)
• Uninstall the Realtek driver. There's another realtek driver to uninstall too.
  In total 3 apps / drivers to uninstall.
• When you've done this, reboot and Windows will use the default audio driver (thankfully it's just a Realtek HD audio device, that any OS can deal with). After that it works perfectly.

Unfortunately, this means that you'll get worse sound quality on speakers (the Maxx app helps a lot with the bass boost and clarity boost settings inside). But it's just how it is, that's the price you have to pay for a lack of borders, sounds coming from the top of the case would be much better but there's no room.

It's already half way of 2020 (June) and i'm having the same issues!!! @singmokjai 

I just got the Dell XPS 13 9300 literally 3 days ago and I've been keeping a close eye on all the minor issues. Yesterday, I was testing out the aux and inserted a set of wired headsets in. The sound played fine when using my headset. Then when I removed the headset from the audio jack, the transition from headset to computer sound system was not smooth at all!! I was testing with Spotify music, and noticed that the sound wasn't playing at all. I adjusted the volume to 100% --> 0% and I heard nothing from the Speakers (Realtek(R) audio). I attempted to play a Youtube video and still nothing. But then, the audio resumed to play through the Speakers AFTER I had restarted the computer.

A few minutes later, I attempted this again to see if I could plug in/out my earphones and check if the audio would play through the sound system and for the second time, it didn't play anything. The laptop crashed and the blue screen with the sad face " Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you." It loaded to 100%, but didn't restart right away and remained on the same blue screen for 10+ minutes. Soon enough, I called Dell tech support for help. They helped me restart the laptop and check the issues, and simply made updates. After that update restart, my laptop was back to normal with the audio.

 These issues are major TURN OFFS because I ran into this blue screen issue so many times with my previous 5yr old Lenovo, and it gave me anxiety every single crash. Considering that this is a VERY NEW laptop, consumers should not be running into this issue. 

The following day (6/25), I tested my fully charged Bluetooth Apple Airpods. The connection pairing was successful, but the sound was AWFUL. The music will play, but there's cracking noises and random skips in the audio. Just straight up poor connection - definitely NOT what I want to hear. If I disconnect any audio (Airpods or headset), the music would take a few seconds to transition to the laptop’s Sound (Realtek(R) audio).

I am a student and utilize my laptop almost every day for long periods of time. It’s an inconvenience when a newly designed laptop has these issues which ultimately affects productivity. I am glad that the Dell Tech support helped in some ways, so I do hope that Dell Support fixes these issues for future consumers!

If any of you all have these issues and were able to resolve them…. PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

I have the same problem with my Dell XPS 13.

I tried the new Realtek Driver 6.0.8955.1, A03 but unfortunately it doesn't fix the problem.

I noticed that every time the problem occurred the Intel(R) Smart Sound OED component was marked by windows in the Device Manager.

As a quick fix to recover the sound on the external speaker, just disable and enable the Intel(R) Smart Sound OED component.

I'm going to open a support ticket with Dell.

Thanks a lot @Vorlindeion, your workaround does solve the problem.